Outbound links are links going out from a site to an other site, Whole internet/WWW was built upon links, Inbound links and Outbound links make up the web, Outbound links are good to maintain the quality of a site, search engines like links, they like outbound links too, If you link out to a collection of quality sites then definetely there is a small boost to that page,

Jon M. Kleinberg proposed that hubs are a collection of quality links, More information on hubs and authorities in this paper, http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/auth.pdf

Outbound links are good for usability too, For certain references it is important to give the source so that people are guided in the correct way, Especially non commercial sites need to link out freely for people to find relavant information if they are found elsewhere on the web,

SEO Blog Team,

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