Product links on homepage

[GourmetDirect]

Hi, I;m wondering if it really does aid SEO or even hinder it now to have lists of top selling products as links on the base of each page.  This was recommended to us sometime ago by a consultant so we did it but is it outdated?  I'm concerned it may penalise our pages now by creating too many links?

opinions appreciated.  wwww.gourmetdirect.com and scroll down to see what I mean

[David_ODonnell]

Instead of rehashing you might want to have a read of these posts in regards to your site-wide footer links:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/smarter-internal-linking-whiteboard-friday

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond