Now I use a redirect /goto/Sitename.php for external links Google sees this as a broken link I think, even though it redirects to the new site. Is there any way to use a /goto/Sitename.php redirect without making it seem broken? I'm sure someone knows what I mean. Oh and does google punish for broken links? severely? Also would google punish the MAIN site for broken links on those /goto/sitename.php files?
Linking to quality sites with the proper anchor text will help the search engines identify your site topic, which will help them rank you. So linking directly, without the nofollow attribute, is good. If you don't get a 404 error when going on the link, so do the bots, I suspect. Google probably won't give you much trust if most of your links are broken. One broken link won't kill you, I believe, though.
Yes I know all that. they're not broken from what I can tell, but they are REDIRECTS (which are possibly viewed as broken?). Does anyone else have experience in this area? Please help out.
I really didn't understand what you are trying to say here. I think maybe you are getting confused about redirects and broken links You can use these Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker Tools to see if the redirect that you've added is correct/Search Engine Friendly or not: http://www.webconfs.com/redirect-check.php http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/redirect-check/