Could having zero outbound links hurt my rankings with Penguin?

[Oimachi2]

I'm so paranoid about Google that I don't link AT ALL, not a single outgoing link.

Should I put some nofollow links to "authority sites" to look more "natural"?

Might that be a reason why some of my sites got hit by Penguin?

[jimbeetle]

if Google did change its algorithm such that outbound links are now important

Many people have thought outbound links to be important for quite a number of years. A 2002 citation [webmasterworld.com]:

From every page, link to one or two high ranking sites under that particular keyword. Use your keyword in the link text (this is ultra important for the future).

Except for maybe tweaking the second half of that I have seen no evidence that relevant outbound links have decreased in importance over the years. It's a technique that many folks have used quite successfully. I'm not saying that it's appropriate or right for each and every site, but it should certainly be considered.

[robzilla]

I remember a time when just linking to the Yahoo homepage would give you a boost :-)