What criteria can be used to determine a good site for link exchange?

(from a PR perspective)

[apprentice]

Building upon some previous threads regarding 'resource' or 'link' pages, is there any checklist that we can take into account while looking for suitable sites for link exchange? By saying 'suitable', in this case, i mean in terms of PR benefits. I do already know (and agree) that any website on the resources page should and must be relevant to the website's content i.e. useful from a visitor's pragmatic perspective.

What I already know (correct me if I am wrong) a beneficial site which will be beneficial for a link exchange is one that, generally, doesn't treat exchange as a means for gaining PR. Such websites include those that 'hide' the resource page in many ways, have a huge directory of categorised links (even totally irrelevant to their site), require a more-than-5 keyword in the reciprocal link's anchor, plus many more tricks.

Apart from the obvious steps of checking the PR rating for homepage, link page where the link is to be placed, quality of content and generally things that leave an impression of something malicious, what else can be done? I have even come across some websites that have a different domain name for their link exchange, while some others have a suspiciously similar link page which gives 404s if you try to hit 'previous' or 'next'. Few months ago I came across a website that had completely stolen the structure and content of a famous European chain of online stores and somehow, presently is still online. You name it, I have seen it.

What else is it possible to check in a website in order to make sure that, apart from the practical point of view, we also gain some traffic. Are there preferences in terms of the underlying technology of the page? For example a static html page vs. a CGI, php or otherwise dynamically generated page in a format:

example.com/cgi/something.pl?catID=something

If a reciprocal link was to be placed in such page, would that be suspicious or even having a 'no-follow' acting behind the scenes? On the contrary a page with the format:

example.com/links/index.html

sounds more promising to me. But is it really the case? Listing a website in a resources page is something like a recommendation to our website's viewers. How do we go delving a little deeper?

Thanks in advance

[martinibuster]

Does it have to be from a PR perspective?

[apprentice]

No. Of course not.

I am just referring to a case of a newly-starting website. Especially at the beginning, my guess is that this website will need some inbound links to get it started. I have noticed that Google and I presume other SEs would crawl a website more often if someone links to it and apart from a few quality directories out there (i.e. ODP, Yahoo), realistically there is no other way to get it known. If a website is not submitted to any directories or have couple quality exchanged links I guess it would take much more time for it to be 'discovered' regardless of how good its content is. And listing the site in any of the above directories could take ages, not to mention that it is uncertain. I am not saying that link exchange should be based solely on PR, or that I wouldn't exchange a link with a PR0 (as long as its useful to the users).

Regards