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It just has more nodes pointing to its links.

That's the danger behind PageRank. If something false is popular enough, it will replace fact.

Is there any alternative, though? You can't algorithmically determine truth.

Not without sentiment analysis applied to links. However, that's game-able.

Not just more nodes, then it would have been easy, but more "credible and relevant" nodes. At least that's the idea.

correct. simple back-links no longer have the weight they used to (and in some situations can actually harm your SEO).

Backlinks must come from other reputable (in google's algorithm's eye's) sites before they carry any weight.

So, this would mean, tldp.org has a lot of top-ranked linux/bash and related sites pointing to it's pages.