link index to index page

is linking pages good to a certain extent?

[Crush]

I am thinking about getting other webmasters to link from their index page to mine and I will do the same.
Is this wise? The advantage is that I have a page rank 6 and so do they, thus more PR.
Is there a limit of links one should keep to. i.e no more than say 10 outbounds from your homepage.
I have a few sites inteststed and would like the wise ones opinions before I go in ;)

[takagi]

It is quite unusual to have several outbound links on your homepage. Why don't you use a link-page? Do these other sites also link from their homepage? It is common practice
to link from a link page, or a relevant sub-page to the homepage of another site.

[Mohamed_E]

A big problem with linking from your home page is that people sometimes actually click on links :( Worse yet, they do not always hit the "back" button. So you might be losing potential customers the moment they hit your index page.

[Marketing Guy]

Ive got 2 outbound links on my homepage (graphical ads).

I have seen no decrease in PR.

Yes, people do click thru and they may not come back, but as long as the site you are linking to sends some traffic your way, it really doesn't matter.

Scott

[Gothicgranola]

You can actually avoid users clicking off of the page by hiding the links using CSS, or giving PR to other sites by listing outbound links in a frame.

[Marketing Guy]

Why have a link that the user cant link on?

Scott

[onyxtech]

it's probably not a bad way to inflate link pop. As long as nobody catches you ;)

[caine]

If your trading links from home page to home page, it will be beneficial, but make sure that the link is extremely relative, and also that you can vouch for the decency of the organisation that you are linking too of your BRAND page, if they are shaky in their dealings with other businesses or with comsumers, this could reflect badly on you! kid you not.

Numbers wise, don't go crazy, as all the PR will be diverted off your site, hence straight back to the reciprocating sites, and not down your site structure.

[caine]

I agree with marketing guy,

all these moves to hide links, so that the user / SE, can't see them is bad practice, and if any of my link partners did it to me, i would be quite devious in my manoveours to say F#@* Y..
Most individuals that would trade PR off the top page, are more than likely to know quite a few of the PR burying tricks - i would not advise this, bad practice.

[Crush]

Thanks for all the answers there. As for people clicking away, I think not. I have country(a) widgets and the sites I am linking to have the same widgets but in country (b). So unless the customer is thinking of going to country b they will not click on the link.

Also my home page is quite full with info and I can put the link somewhere near the bottom.

As for transferring the page rank to the other sites and not through mine one should rember that they will be linking to me from a page rank 6. How often do you get that from a links page? Never, or if you do there are a million other links there.

So a few people got me thinking now...more comments welcome