External Linking & Your sites Link juice

[SheffieldMarketing]

Hey guys, quick question. Does a page lose link juice when it gives link juice? If I link to an outside site, do I lose that same amount of link juice or is it just applied to there site and not removed from mine?  I understand that linking to a competitor can in turn help him and hurt me (if he then is seen as more relevant than me to google) but does it have a direct relation to hurting/removing my page link juice? Hope this all makes sense. Thanks

[ChaseFleming]

Yes, when you link to another site you are passing some of your link juice to them. You can add a nofollow attribute (i.e. rel="nofollow">example link ) to your outgoing links to stop this from happening, but its looked down upon. If you do this within your own site too much this can also be interpreted by Google as page sculpting (another thing frowned upon). I like to think of the thought behind your question as link karma. Next time you post something worthwhile someone may do the same when linking to you. Is that something you really want? If the content is actually worth linking to then you should throw them the link. In the long run if your page is really of value this shouldn't affect your ranking. In some cases, Google even appears to like it when you link to trusted and valuable sources.

[ResslerMotors]

Common perception is that "nofollow" links still deplete your link juice, but the other site does not benefit.

That being said, there is no correlated data saying that linking to high quality sites will hinder your rankings (if done in moderation, and properly).  In fact, the correlation is very minutely in the positive.  So, if you think something is good enough to send your customers to, just let the link go free.  My only suggestion would be to control your anchor text, and make sure it's not something you would wank to rank for.  Ultra safe scenario would be to link with their brand name.