Flow of Authority/PR Distribution of Internal Links

[GearyLSF37]

OK, there are tons of Q&A on this subject but after about 20 mins of sifting through I found nothing on this. On the surface it is a simple idea but I'd like to hear a wide range of thought s on this.

So if a page has 150 internal links and only about 3-5 external links, would it still be considered a good page to get a link from assuming it is relevant and authoritative?

My thoughts have always been that too many links on a page, regardless of whether or not they are internal links or external links, will dilute that page's authority either way and that in turn makes it a poor link prospect.

If PR/authority flows internally through links then my thoughts should be substantiated. And I think that we all agree that external links flow authority out from the domain AND the page. But internal links flow authority away from the page which should make a page with lots of internal links on it a poor target for a link.

[Maximise]

The PR flowing through will be divided by the total number of links on the page (not necessarily equally), regardless of whether they are internal or external. I have seen various articles suggesting that maybe external links "could" receive more worth than the internal ones but it's hard to be sure. I can say that the 3 links would not get a third of the total PR in your example, the internal links would dilute it.

[GearyLSF37]

I'm well aware of that post and statement from Mr. Cutts. But my questions is more along the lines of PR flowing to your 1 external link on a page with 97 internal links. So if there are 97 internal links on a page and only 3 external links, do the external links each get 33.33% of the PR flow or does your link get 1% of the PR flow because of all the internal links?

[Maximise]

Have a look at this post - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-many-links-per-page/

The recommendation is to not have more than around 100 links per page. One reason for this, as you mention, is that more links will mean that the value each link can pass on will be diluted. Another reason is that Google may not actually follow all the links on the page (this rule is not set in stone but will depend on the page) so you may see little value from a link in a page like this.