What are the benefits of outbound links?

[clickagent75]

With so much talk about "nofollow"ing outbound links and containing Google's link juice, and leakage.

What are the benefits of linking out? If you link out to credible sites with high page ranks does Google give you higher acknowledgement through osmosis? Improved trustrank?

[AussieWebmaster]

Linking out to autority sites show you are knowledgeable of the space

[lyj1968]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

Linking out to autority sites show you are knowledgeable of the space

This is an interesting information. thank you!

[BasicECommerce]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

Linking out to autority sites show you are knowledgeable of the space

Does this mean there is no real benefit to linking out other than impressing your current visitors?

[Marcia]

No, the engines look at all link the connectivity of a site to determine its overall link profile - both inbound and outbound.

[allstar784]

Originally Posted by BasicECommerce

Does this mean there is no real benefit to linking out other than impressing your current visitors?

Check out Google's webmaster section for their idea of what relevant, quality content consists of....

Even Matt Cutts (Google Engineer) has stated that having a link to a relevant source provides greater relevancy to your own content.

I've noticed when it's an authority site, it is less likely to drain page rank, though I have not noticed any change in the rank of sites I've managed using nofollow or allowing robots to follow on page links, either way.

[aks2008]

Outbound links are also important but not as much as inbound links. I have experienced that outbound links to relevant sites can also affect your overall ranking in the search engines.

[mooreseo]

Originally Posted by aks2008

Outbound links are also important but not as much as inbound links. I have experienced that outbound links to relevant sites can also affect your overall ranking in the search engines.

A lot of us have seen this, and I would love to hear how your experience has shown this. The more we can learn from each other, the better this forum will be.

Is there anything you can share with us on this?

[MattUK]

Originally Posted by Marcia

No, the engines look at all link the connectivity of a site to determine its overall link profile - both inbound and outbound.

Yep, I agree completely. Blogs tend to rank better than their e-comm counterparts as linking between sites in the same industry is positively encouraged in comparison.

[The Enemy]

Like inbound links, anything that connects you to another (preferably higher PR) site is good in the eyes of visitors and search engine spiders. Like it was said though, outbound links don't hold nearly the water that inbound ones do.

[TryUsOut]

Outbound links to authority and useful sites adds value in the eyes of your visitors as well.

[dgkwong]

Adding outbound links will not only add authority to your site as everyone has stated above, but it will also only help as long as your links are relevant. I have heard that Google discourages PageRank plugs.

[garnet21]

By having outbound links from your site, you are in essence "voting" for the site you link to. This is part of the entire ranking algorithm process for all the search engines. The idea is, that if two sites are similar in content and design, a site with more links pointing to it would be considered more important by the search engine.

So then, why should you help out any other site? Actually, by carefully linking to other relevant sites, you are increasing the relevancy of your own site.

[myhab]

I don't think out bound link will help anyway.