Outgoing links... bad neighborhood?

I was just reading a post saying that outgoing links to "bad neighborhood" sites can be extremely harmful to your serps. I have heard that before but how can you find out if a link you are considering putiing on your site is considered "bad neighborhood?"

 

See if site has mature sites listed or linked to it. You could search site in yahoo and see links that link to site first

 

also, make sure the link you are adding on your site is related to the same content of your own site. you can do some reading on this article http://www.webconfs.com/bad-neighborhood-article-13.php

 

bad neighborhood means spam sites, adult sites (probably), and warez.

 

Porn, gambling, spam, warez, etc. are all bad sites to have outgoing links to. It doesn't affect your rankings negatively, however, if they link to you (if it did competitors would get your links for you ). Also, be careful about linking to sites with no/gray PR.

 

You can try this tool out, see if it helps diagnose who you want to link to:

http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/text-link-tool.htm

-Michael