Can links be harmful?

I have a site which is informative and it would make it easier for my readers if I also had outward links, but as I don't have reciprocal links would this be harmful to my PR? Also I am afraid it might steer readers away from my site and they might not find their way back. Or would it be better to have the url address of the link without the actual href code, so that readers could copy and paste the address if they want to read more about a particular subject?

 

Readers will find their way back just fine if they think your site has value.

Take a look at the most popular sites in any industry. They all have links out to other sources.

A site that doesn't link out at all just looks "unnatural."

As to hurting PR, why not worry about actual readers and profits first? And last I checked, there are some PR 6,7, whatever directories that are nothing buy links to other destinations.

 

that depents on the sites which you are making link exchange. if you are making with related site, it will hel your serp

 

Readers will find their way back if they do like your site, like Marketjunction said.

You will help their PR by linking to them, but your PR will completely depend on the sites linking to you. And if you link to good, informative sites, there is no reason for you to be penalized. On the other hand, you are giving your users a valuable resource and they will appreciate you for that.

 

You can always let the links open in new windows if you are afraid to lose them. Anyway, you dont link to your competitiors.

 

Exactly what Login said! Open your outbound links from a new window. I'll add to only link out when its a benefit to your visitors (relevant).

 

customer satisfaction is important, but without customers there can be no customer satisfaction. This is why it is important for me that my pages are found with search engines. The opinion seems to be that lots of one way outward links would not be harmful for my pages. But what about dead links? Is there any way of finding where they are? I have too many pages to do it manually.

 

As long the site is related it will not hurt your site you will gain additional points for Google.

 

you can link to open the new web in new window, and i think you dont have to be worry about PR if you will not links linkfarms or porn, gambling ...there is dangerous, that these sites then could link you ...than it be wasnt good ...

 

I agree, I have a few selected recipricol links and I get as much traffic from them as they get from me, if they found my site useful they will come back, if they want more info elsewhere then they would have gone looking anyway. Also the links are relevant and help me with the search engines, don't be paranoid about losing visitors, this will only harm you in the long run.

Keep them relevant and link with good, well run sites and you wont go far wrong.

 

Try using Xenu's Link Sleuth to find the dead links.

 

Thanks for the link. I downloaded the free program and it found a lot of dead links which I got rid of. I should have thanked you sooner, but got totally caught up in my work. Sorry about that!

 

Just link with related site! or maybe target .gov and .edu domain.

 

No probs. Glad you made good use of it.

 

Linking to relevent sites (same/similar subject matter) helps. I have an old stock certificate site, OldStocks.com on which most of my pages have external links. This helps in a niched (real subject matter) site.

If you have random links, there is no relevant content to be linking from...

 

To be quite honest linking to bad networks of sites can be harmful every time. Also doing link exchanges or obvious paid linking can be very detrimental to your website. I suggest you do a simple google search or start reading some tips from SEOmoz.