Question about link popularity

[wll6568]

I am very confused with link popularity. I know link popularity plays a huge role in boosting a site to rank high for keywords. But I look at a website, I can't show the site url, but this site, it's a very big web hosting site, it has spent huge budget on building links. It has five PR8 websites, 15 PR7, 20 PR6 websites, all of these with HUGE link popularities POINTING to the site's homepage.

However, its keywords are "web hosting", but how come it does not get ranked even in top 20 of Google and Yahoo? I thought with so much budget spent and so much link popularities, it should rank at least within top 20, even the keywords are competitive.

I checked some sites ranking well in "web hosting" keyword, they dont even have 1/10 of the link popularity the site has. This web hosting site has about 308K link popularity.

Anybody knows why?

[CainIV]

I know exactly why as I am one of 'those sites'.

Link popularity is only only one measure of a site's importance in the search engines.

Simply buying a series of high pr links no longer will necessairly give you the results you want rank wise.

PR toolbar is simply a measure or link quantity, and not quality. Its very likely a link from a dmoz-listed hosting site with a pr4 links page to you could be worth much more to Google than a fly-by-night pr8 purchased link. Keep in mind domain length, age of link to you and many other factors all place a value on your ranks....

I have less than 600 links pointed at me, however they are all high quality links from quality completely related sites in hosting. All links are older than one year.

It all adds up.....