Liane - 11:40 am on Jun 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

GG, A two part question which recurs on WebmasterWorld:

Do reciprocal links hurt your rankings? Do outgoing links "sap" your PR?

I don't take part in reciprocal link campaigns. I had an aunt and uncle who were members of opposing political parties. Every election, they went to the poles in order to cancel out each others vote. They did that right up until they died within 6 weeks of one another at the age of 93! :)

That is how I view the usefulness of reciprical links ... I figure they pretty much cancel one another out. I don't go hunting for incoming links either. Instead, I wait (hope) for natural links.

I link to that "content" in which I think my potentential customers may be interested and I am pleased when somebody links to my site. In fact, I likely have more outgoing links on my site than a lot of so called directories. I certainly have more outgoing links than I do incoming links.

So ... do reciprocal links hurt a site/page rankings? Do outgoing links "sap" your PR?