What effect to outbound links play in page rank, and other SEO related things. Does too many outbound links hurt?
From what I understand, if your page has a high PR and you link to lower PR pages, then your PR can go down. I think it's called PR leak or something like that.
The amount of outgoing links does not affect your PR nor SERP position. However, linking to penalized sites may be a bad thing for your SERP position. I don't think so. It would be a non-sense. Could you provide us with some reference?
yes there is truth but you can link to other pages without givin them you page rank unless you want to.. you could add the nofoolow attribute to link link affiliate link and example links..
Outbound links probably have great role in rankings as for Google says we are the one that have control over our links and not much on other sites that link to us specially for competitors to give us link from bad neighbors. Also be aware with relevancy of outbound links that you link page will be considered as link farm with too many unrelated links to your site niche.
If I'm working on a new site that's no where in the SERPS I will link to an authority from my front page just to give my new site a 'connection' with one of the top players for my targeted keywords. Then the inbound campaign will begin. It's all about letting Google know what your site is about I certainly wouldn't link to any other site for any other reason then relevancy.