Is this a good practice?

the way I overcome the problem of changed links (rather than rely on someone else ;-), is by using a program like Web Trends to do a weekly check if all outbound links – from every single one of my webpages – are complete, and unbroken. ( Netmechanic, from memory, I believe gives you a free check).

nice list. I’m missing TrackBack here :-(
I think we shouldn’t think to much about Google-PageRank-stuff.
Remember: It’s-just-a-company! Think more about good content and produce more (new) content yourself then linking.

To make it short: Fight meta-content…

* Habe ich wirklich gelesen, wohin ich verlinke?
* Interessiert meine Leser was sie dort vorfinden?
* Kennen meine Leser die Seite nicht ohnehin?
* Wie oft habe ich schon selbst diesen Link gesetzt?
* Erklärt oder Erweitert der Link den verlinkten Text inhaltlich?
* Erklärt der verlinkte Text was hinter dem Link zu finden ist?
* Funktioniert der Link jetzt und auch dauerhaft?
* Wenn ich glaube mit einem Link meine Leser zu verlieren, sollte ich über meine Inhalte nachdenken.
* Wenn mir mein Pagerank wichtig ist, verlinke ich nicht auf gebannte PR “0″-Seiten. (Das sollte aber bei relevantem Inhalt auf der Zielseite nicht vorkommen)

I understand that sometimes it may be necessary to change the structure of a website. You may need to because you changed content generator tools or because a filename has an unfortunate name and can be read some other way, or because you screwed up and put the link in the wrong place to start with.

But other people have linked to you – and you would think that anyone with a website or blog would understand that if someone clicked on a link and came to you, the last thing you want to give them is a 404 page. We get enough of that anyway from mistyped links, right? So if you had a page and have moved it, put in a redirect to the new page.

If you don’t know how, search for “htaccess redirect” at the site under my nickname above. Or Google search for the same thing.

One thing I never worry about is whether I’m sending them away. If my content is so boring that you don’t come back, well, that’s the way it is. I can’t entrance every human on the planet, and don’t need to either – a small subset of appreciative readers will do just fine, thanks.

I’m also unconcerned if most readers have likely already seen it – I try to use title tags that would alert them to that so they needn’t bother if they have seen it, but I’d rather have the link there for the one person that has no idea what I’m blathering about.

Finally, I never link just for linking’s sake, though I’m sometimes tempted by the same reason ChrisH gives – but if I don’t have anything to add or argue about, I don’t do it. I’ve sometimes thought of putting up a weekly page of “this is stuff I thought was interesting but had nothing to say about”.. but it just doesn’t seem to fit my personality.

This is VERY misleading. Linking to a low PR site, that is relevant to your site’s topic won’t hurt you. The whole issue of “leaking” PR by linking to low PR sites is very overblown. The only thing that can really hurt you is linking to sites that Google has given a PR penalty to or FFA links pages.

If you’re linking to quality, on topics sites, PR won’t matter.

I have to ponder the second one a bit more. 10 times is not many on the internet and if I don’t link to something because of that, am I not then fulfilling the objectives of my blog? Will my readers ask “You blog on this – why didn’t you link? Yours is the site I come to for this sorta stuff.”

Don’t we owe our readers the best information possible even if there is a chance that they may like the other site more?

I like to believe that providing your readers with the best information should be the first priority before worrying about readers going away to the site that you just showed them. If the site that you are linking to is awesome enough that it will steal your users then it will happen eventually any way because your readers will end up finding that link sooner or later. I’d rather have them find it through me than someone else.

I like the one you added. I always do that. Darn I wish I had though to add it to the list. Ah, but then that’s why you are the master and I am just the Liz. :)