Outbound links and their pro's and con's

[Daylan]

So I was wondering if there was a general consensis regarding the amount of outbound links you have coming from your domain to other domains and if there is a correlation between the more you have going out, the more (for want of a better word) damage you can do to your domain.

EG: is a site with good domain authority better to keep the short leash on handing out links to external sites? Does this make the link juice from the site more valuable?

[EGOL]

Wait.... your question is so extreme that I must answer in a realistic way...

Apple is never, ever, ever going to link to every computer website.  Some of them are not relevant enough to content on Apple's website. Some of them are not good enough for Apple to give them a link. Some computer websites are blackhat.

The day that Apple starts linking to everything everywhere is the day that their links are worthless.  Keep that in mind when you start linking out. Keep that in mind when you evaluate the value of a link coming to you.

Link only to relevance.  Link only to quality.  Link only to good sites.  If you do that you will have a great site.

You keep looking for a "limit".  The limit isn't a number.  The limits are relevance, quality and virtue.

[Daylan]

Great. Thanks guys. I guess it was more a question of 'do you think there is a limit to outbound links'.

EG: If you're a computer company, then getting a link to your site from apple.com would be gold. But if every computer website in North America got a link from the apple site, would that devalue either a) The link value or b) apple's domain value.

I know thats an extreme example, but thought it might shed some light on the 'how many links it too many' question.

Thanks again.

[SpottedFrogDesign]

According to the tools offered by SeoMoz, there is some value to outbound linking. For sites I work with,. I will frequently link out to other websites I feel could be beneficial to the end users experience (without linking to the competition of course). I see no reason why there would be a penalty. In fact, I would think any search engine would respect that you are not an island but contributing easy access to relevant information to the greater internet community.

Don't worry about passing PR and losing it because you are linking out. Too much thought goes into PR and it's effectiveness. Personally, I have sites that outrank high PR websites that reflect a 1 or 2 (compared to a 5 or 6).

[EGOL]

...general consensis regarding the amount of outbound links...

Just go out and look at other sites.  Most of them do not link out freely.  They worry about giving away linkjuice, they worry about helping competitors, they worry about losing traffic, they worry about damaging their income.

if there is a correlation between the more you have going out, the more damage you can do to your domain.

If there was a problem with linking out then wikipedia would not rank for anything.

The web is all about linking and I highly doubt that google would penalize sites for doing it.  In fact, which would you rank higher... a kickass article with no external links or the identical kickass article that links out to all of the most important information on the web about related topics?  Which would you value if you were a searcher?

Link out freely and links will flow back to you.

is a site with good domain authority better to keep the short leash on handing out links to external sites?

You don't need to keep a leash on the links what you need to watch out for is linking to trash.  I you are linking only to site that are better than your own then I am betting that you will be rewarded with links, likes, domain queries, rankings and more.