How much does link exchange help with SEO?

[kevint]

For sites that do mutual link exchanges with the same PR, how much does this help the SEO?

[stymiee]

Very little if at all with Google. MSN seems to eat it up though.

If you want links to point to your site for SEO then they should be:

1) On topic (The page linking to your page is about the same main topic)
2) Ranked well for the keyphrase you are after (In the top 1,000)
3) Uses anchor text with your keywords in it
4) Has high PR (Google only)