Rel="external" What affect if any does this have on SEO

[SEOKeith]

When building Anchor text links what affect if any does rel="external" have on inlinks placed to your site.

Thanks,

Kjay

[THB]

"rel="external" does nothing except notify the browser to open a new window, like target="_blank". The only difference is that rel="external" is xhtml valid, and target="_blank" is not."

Here is a good discussion on the subject... a little dated, but still holds true: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=61308

[SEOKeith]

This is what I thought... Makes sense, thanks for the link and confirmation