Outbound Links on your Homepage

Does it help or hurt?

[wfernley]

I have heard some say that having outbound links on your homepage can help your ranking in Google. They say G takes into effect that you are linking to another high ranked website.

I have also heard it can lower your PR and your ranking because you are linking to another website on your homepage.

I wanted to start a discussion regarding this to figure out if it would help my G ranking to add outbound links on my homepage.

Thanks!

Wes

[Stefan]

If your homepage is loaded up with outbound links (like some fake directory), with no real content on it, and/or few links to real content on the rest of the site, then I don't think it will help you any. But, if you have a few outbounds to the best other sites on the topic, and you have lots of content overall on your site, it won't hurt and might even help.

(Imho, etc, etc)

[wfernley]

I was thinking of having about 5 links on my homepage going to other websites press releases. Should the links go to the sites homepage or can it just go to any page within that domain?

Thanks again!

[sem4u]

Why are you wanting to link to other websites press releases. Are these your own sites? Is there any special reason to want to link to them?

[wfernley]

No they are not my sites. They are press releases of manufacturers of the product my site deals with. I have a news section that offers the latest news from these manufacturers.