Resource vs. profitable business model

Half SEO, half business question

[socalbrad]

My question is two part:

I have a directory of 2000 <snip> manufacturers and for most of them I have email, website URL, physical address, phone, etc. Thus far I've been keeping their URL to myself and letting my users contact them through a referral form where I track the submission and the end user never sees the mfgs email address. I would like to give my users their website address but I'm trying to ride the fine line between giving my users enough information for the site being an actual useful resource but not giving it all out so the <snip> mfgs want to pay the small fee for a full page premium listing. Where is that line? This is open for general discussion and if anyone has any experience with this issue I would love to hear about it.

Second part, If I make the URL to the mfgs site viewable for the basic listings is it going to be a plus or minus from the crawler point of view having a ton of outbound links with very few coming back to me.

Brad

[edited by: caveman at 6:34 pm (utc) on Oct. 24, 2006]
[edit reason] No specifics please, per TOS. [/edit]

[caveman]

Hey socalbrad, welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Call me crazy but it seems your question has mainly to do with what your business model should be. Speaking of which, what is your business model, generally speaking? ;-) It sounds like you're thinking of shifting it rather dramatically, which may or may not be a good thing.

[socalbrad]

The business model is simple create a directory where everybody is listed for free. That's the "basic listing" then have a full page "premium listing" where they pay a nominal fee but get to list out all their products with pictures and write up a marketing blurb about their company and show up at the top of the list vs. being listed alph with all the basic listings.

My inclination is to give up the url and just open up a new window but is that gonna help or hinder me with my rankings?

Brad

[edited by: caveman at 8:57 pm (utc) on Oct. 24, 2006]
[edit reason] Specifics removed (again) per TOS. ;-) [/edit]

[Robert Charlton]

socalbrad - I think you've nailed it yourself when you said you'd be turning the site into "an actual useful resource." You're right... without the urls (and live links) it's not very useful at all.

Most of the directories I've seen without outbound links... or with redirect outbounds that try to hoard PR... appear to be very old school and are probably dying off.

I think that real, plain vanilla, outbound html links will in the long run help you, but you'll probably need to study up on PageRank distribution on a site before making any structural decisions.

Don't play games with "nofollow" attributes either.