jcoronella - 10:12 pm on Mar 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

Personally, I think that if a website doesn't want to REALLY support a site by linking to it, but does for other reasons, it is in google's interest to know this. The whole PR system that google has in place is a way for sites to 'vote' for other sites, and it makes sense that if you really don't think siteA is very good, but you need to link to it, that vote shouldn't count. Nor would google want it to count.

Sites that feel the need to 'hide' links are likely NOT highly regarded by Google - at least in theory - and you are just helping them do their job by not spreading your PR around.

Jake has a good point about sites with no outgoing links sending up the 'spammy' flag. There is also evidence that good on-topic outgoing links helps your ranking.