By revisiting the preferential attachment (PA) mechanism for generating a classical scale-free network, we propose a class of novel preferential attachment similarity indices for predicting future links in evolving networks. Extensive experiments on 14 real-life networks show that these new indices can provide more accurate prediction than the traditional one. Due to the improved prediction accuracy and low computational complexity, these proposed preferential attachment indices can be helpful for providing both instructions for mining unknown links and new insights to understand the underlying mechanisms that drive the network evolution.