Outbound Links - Negative PR

Outbound Links pr

[curly_clare]

Hi guys,

Just come across this interesting article, is it really true? I beleived it was best practice to include outbound external links and included keyowrds in the text!

What do you think?

"Outbound links are a drain on a site's total PageRank. They leak PageRank. To counter the drain, try to ensure that the links are reciprocated. Because of the PageRank of the pages at each end of an external link, and the number of links out from those pages, reciprocal links can gain or lose PageRank. You need to take care when choosing where to exchange links."

Thanks

[jsnow]

It is true that a percentage of the PR from that page will be given to the external link. If the link adds value to a page i would still say it is worth keeping

[rogerd]

Don't forget the beneficial effects of outbound linkage. Post-Florida, there have been quite a few reports of pages ranking well for a term in the text of an outbound link on their page.

Note, too, that PR is determined by page, not entire site. Outbound links may divide the PR transferred by an individual page, but aren't the equivalent of a hole in a bucket through which your site's PR will leak out.

Put links where they make good sense, and don't worry too much about the PR consequences.

[Moby_Dim]

I've been especially experimenting with outbound links on one of my sites since Sept. (i think - if outbound links are useful for a visitor, they should be useful for the page too :). I see that some "heavy outbound" pages are better ranked now (but still few data to be statistically proved, so don't take it too seriously ;)