decaff - 3:28 pm on Apr 18, 2007 (gmt 0)

As for the idea (stated earlier in this thread) that outbound links without the nofollow attribute are risky, that's 180 degrees out of synch with common sense. Hypertext links (a.k.a. citations) are the most fundamental principle of the Web, they're the basis of Google's PageRank formula, and they're essential to a search engine's crawling and indexing of the Web....

It's unfortunate that Google has to travel down this slippery slope...(but they have no choice given the dynamics of links and the value given to them by Google itself)...

If I, as a web publisher (be it ecommerce, information, education....etc..) can't simple set an outbound "hypertext" link from one of my content pages to another resource that I deem as a valuable complimentary resource for my visitors...and then have to consider how Google will see this (paid or not paid)...and worry about some of penatly or devaluation for ranking...what do I care anyways...?

I am not setting the link for ranking...I am setting the link for my site visitors...(who have become a loyal bunch of readers because I have consistently considered their needs and listened to their feedback over the years...)..