There’s a good article on Cath Lawson’s site on the importance of linking out. This is something I know I don’t do as much as I could, and need to work on.
Some people don’t link out because they like to hog their PageRank. I’ve never worried about that… PR comes or it doesn’t, Google giveth and Google taketh away. Matter of fact, they took away on this site a long time ago and still haven’t given back, and I don’t care.
Linking out isn’t about PageRank. It’s about referring to good resources and backing up what you say. Not to mention Cath’s point about advertisers.
I don’t link out as often as I could. Most of my material doesn’t lend itself to linking and I don’t make a point of creating posts for the purpose of linking, even though I hava a good size collection that I’ve saved specifically for that.
How much I link out depends a bit on which blog we’re talking about. I have a home and garden shopping and trends blog, where every post gets a link to the place I found the item or idea at.
But with my personal blog on writing, it’s more about me sharing what’s in my head, so links are a little more rare, though they are there in some of the posts.
I don’t think you can hoard PageRank really. My home and garden blog must have close to 3,000 outgoing links, and it still has a respectable PR.
I quite agree about PR, but it amazes me how many people try.
Hi Steph - Thanks for the link love. I think your observations re Page Rank hoarding are spot on. I’ve noticed that the folk who link out little tend to have high PR. But like you, I gave up on worrying about Page Rank a long time ago.