The whole reason people think they want links here there and everywhere is for link juice. Link juice transfers to page rank in google. (kinda sorta) Page rank is a HUGE deal and there are seo companies (search engine optimization) that sell link building plans, schemes, services, programs all over the place -for all kinds of fees - some even specialize in it.
Don't believe everything you see, hear, read. When it comes to ranking in the search engines (google) page rank is all but worthless in fact in my professional opinion as a professional seo practitioner with hundreds of clients and an extremely successful business- we do NOT sell page ranking or link building schemes. In fact we even wrote an
article about why its kind of "bogus".
We sell true seo and our clients rank at the top of major search engines.
Because, see, what really matters most to the google is something unusual and out of the ordinary called "Content" and what is even more important than "Content" is "relevant content". The more relevant your content is for a particular search, the greater chance you will be number one. We've proven (means we did it personally) that a Page Rank Zero website (which was less than one month old by the way) could get to Number 1 (#1) on the google for a competitive search term because of something called "relevant content". Of course it also helps to "optimize" properly by applying certain techniques to your page and copy.
So when it comes to relnofoolow- its a waste of energy to worry about it unless you are worried about page rank.
That said,
good quality,
good neighborhood,
well anchored links are always good and the more, the better. And like others have already said- a link on a blog or article or whatever should be because it has value to the reader, not because a search engine will follow it or not.