How important are outbound links?

[DunkanNJ]

I recently started a directory on a domain i wasnt using.
When people add their site they are asked to link back to me but its not required. I want to keep my directory for the people who use it, i don't plan on charging for adding a site and i dont want to force people to link back to me if they dont want to.
So what im wondering is will the amount of outbound links do me favours or would it really be worth insisting on a backlink?
Comppared to backlinks, how effective are outbound links to the site that hosts them?

Also, i wrote a mod that displpays the last referrer in the footer of everypage.
Im hoping that if people have their link displayed in the footer of every page they might be more inclined to link back.

[MadKad]

you will find that only a small amount of people will link back as no one will out there as there lazy, the thing is with dirs people like the dir to have high PR these days, I my self dont as long as its got really good traffic.

Remember people are out for them selfs, well most of them so this is why link backs to you will not happen alot

as for :

"Comppared to backlinks, how effective are outbound links to the site that hosts them?"

sorry I didnt understand this

[seo_webhost]

In point of view good outbound links can provide good user experience. No matter how is the content of your website but user always find the website useful when there are outbound links in it.

[kareem19]

One thing is for sure - be careful about linking out to any site that Google may deem as a "bad neighborhood"

[harrysmith]

Outbound links are as important as inbound but having many outbound link irrelevant to the the page content may cause problem as such links may be treated as treated though you have not... and while placing a link take care you don't link your visitors to spam site or linkfarms...

[beamup]

Hello

Outbound Links are fine but Inbound are better if we are talking about PR.
Inbound links from related but low PR site is MUCH BETTER than from unrelated with Higher PR.
And Outbound link is something you are giving trusts or recommending your visitors to your link partner. You dont want to refer your viewers to bad websites. So in a way both are important.

Steve

[indieover]

i think it is not really easy to get traffic by outbound link but still really worth the try .

[harrysmith]

Originally Posted by indieover

i think it is not really easy to get traffic by outbound link but still really worth the try .

Yeah, You may not get traffic from out going links but surely if all the outgoing links are helpful for your visitors and are related then you may get returning visitors who will vote for your site

IMO outgoing links are as important as inbound links but for SEO you may think for keep them for less number

[chiptrance]

Outbound links are important but not in an eye of SE.
They are important because you are giving links to your visitor from your website. Its a matter of reputation of your website because you don't want to give your visitor a bad outgoing link because it will effect your site too.

So in a way, they are important.

[marketraise int]

Originally Posted by DunkanNJ

I recently started a directory on a domain i wasnt using.
When people add their site they are asked to link back to me but its not required. I want to keep my directory for the people who use it, i don't plan on charging for adding a site and i dont want to force people to link back to me if they dont want to.
So what im wondering is will the amount of outbound links do me favours or would it really be worth insisting on a backlink?
Comppared to backlinks, how effective are outbound links to the site that hosts them?
Also, i wrote a mod that displpays the last referrer in the footer of everypage.
Im hoping that if people have their link displayed in the footer of every page they might be more inclined to link back.

Outbound links the lesser the better.Outbound links are only present if you opt for a reciprocal link exchange.If you have a link page all you got to do is to see it doesn't have more then 49 outbound links from that page or Google will index it as a link tree instead of a link page.Also what is to be considered here is the page where you have the outbound link.Never opt for a page to put your outbound links on which you need a high PR,say your home page the reason your PR value will be divided amongst all links present on the page.Refer to this.

And the most important point if you really want your link page to be cached and indexed by Google bots,then don't use the term link or any alphanumeric character in the URL of the page you would prefer getting cached.With the last update for PR and backlinks that Google made in February it has made it clear that any link pages containing the term "link" or any alpha numeric characters such as 1.html in their url will not be crawled or cached.So for analysts,web-masters who are looking to have their backlinks increased through reciprocal links better don't upload your page/pages as links.html solely for the reason Google will not crawl it.Rather a term like resource will be better.