I've done my fair share of research on SEO as well during my startup and I can sum it up in one sentence.
Assuming equal on-site optimisations, he with more backlinks wins.
Assuming equal on-site optimisations, he with more backlinks wins.
Exact match domains also crush backlinks.
Look at it this way: having an exact match means you're committing yourself to the search term, either by being first to it or by spending a lot of money to buy the domain from whomever was first. Either is likely to be a signal of quality. Near match, however, just means you had $8 to spare. (For similar reasons, cheap-domain.com or cheapdomain.biz do not receive any bonuses.)
- PR of the page of the backlink. A backlink from a page with PR 5 is better than 20 backlinks from pages with PR 0
- However, PR is not the only matter. There is also domain authority. A page with PR0 on a site with high domain authority (like NYT) could still outrank a PR3 page.
- Anchor text of the backlink. Links like "Click here" or just a plain URL don't say a lot, in compare to "Security Camera" for example.
- Where the link is placed on the page also matters. A link at the top or in the article beats links in the comment areas or at the footer.
Getting mentioned on NYT.com will yield powerful results. Posting yet another link in a related discussion forum topic won't do much.