What's the best way to make sure a link is worth getting?

[MichaelWeisbaum]

I know what tools to use and I use all of SEOmoz's tools daily.  PA, DA, MR, & MT are all things I take into account, but sometimes all you have to do is look at a site and you can tell it's not worth it.  I'll analyze the page's backlink's and everything in between.  Are there any tricks out there that can help the decision making process?  I'm tired of trying to get links on sites that clearly are not worth it, but all of their stats say otherwise.  So do you stick with stats, or is it a judgement call?

I'm particularly curious about determining the amount of possible traffic from a link.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[THB]

Don't link build for PR and PR only.  That will never work out as desired.

Instead, get your link on relevant websites where you link can/will act as an extension to their website by way of added quality/services to their users.  Those are the links the crawlers really give value to.

The saying still stands true... one single, valuable backlink from a reputable, relevant website is equal to hundreds/thousands of backlinks from irrelevant, lower-grade websites.

[sesertin]

If you are looking for traffic not pagerank than alexa.com may be a better tool for you. Or if you are doing great efforts to put quality content on other sites to get links back maybe you can start your whole process by asking them about their daily visits.