Question on out-going links

what should I do?

[troycoppola]

I sell products from 650 different manufactures. 17000 different supplements. On each product page I provide a link to the manufacturer's website so that customers can check on latest product ingredients and so forth. After reading the posts in this forum, I am thinking about removing the links. About thirty of the links are reciprocal. What do you think? The links are very beneficial to my customers. Should I just provide a plain-text url to the manufacturer that is not an active, clickable url? Any advice is appreciated.

[martinibuster]

Use JavaScript to mask the outgoing link.

Or else you can just no follow the link so it doesn't count. If you're not really voting for that page in terms of a citation, an argument could be made that the nofollow is appropriate for that situation.

[troycoppola]

Thanks. Anyone else want to chime in?

[sugarrae]

You could use redirects as well.

[mister charlie]

The links are very beneficial to my customers.

sounds like you are already on the right path.

keep the links (even add more), and use the java as martinibuster recommended.

[troycoppola]

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it. Best of Health, Troy

[UserFriendly]

I'm new to all this, so I'm gonna sound dumb . . .

. . . but why would someone want to remove or disguise those links? If a manufacturer-link relates to the product on that page, then why would it count against you? Especially if your customers find it relevant.

[Valeriu]

If you have accessto your own htaccess file, you can hide
easily your links.

That's the best way I see right now -- unless you want to
use an online service for that!

Valeriu