tedster - 3:37 am on Jun 25, 2009 (gmt 0)

I've often wondered about the effectiveness of this. Where did you see or hear this from MC ?

It's in his June 15 blog post about PR Sculpting.

Q: Okay, but doesn’t this encourage me to link out less? Should I turn off comments on my blog? A: I wouldn’t recommend closing comments in an attempt to “hoard” your PageRank. In the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites. [mattcutts.com...]

Many webmasters here have noticed the effect over past years - going back to Brett's 26 Steps post in 2002 [webmasterworld.com]