Linking Out is Good
“Many websites out there don’t have a single link to another website. According to Webcredible ( http://www.webcredible.co.uk ), a leading UK usability and accessibility consultancy, this is a bad idea. Ask a webmaster why there aren’t any outbound links, and the answer you’ll probably get is simple enough: “If I link to other websites people might leave my site.” At this point you can break the news that site visitors will leave their site. And there’s nothing they can do about this.”
The article is poorly edited but it does bring up a good point. Many web sites do not link out. Jakob Nielsen, for example, very rarely links out and it drives me crazy.
p.s. Here are two old WebWord articles on linking…
Strategic Linking Techniques
When to Link Out of Your Site