[Sem]

I recently started a directory on a domain i wasnt using.
When people add their site they are asked to link back to me but its not required. I want to keep my directory for the people who use it, i don't plan on charging for adding a site and i dont want to force people to link back to me if they dont want to.
So what im wondering is will the amount of outbound links do me favours or would it really be worth insisting on a backlink?
Comppared to backlinks, how effective are outbound links to the site that hosts them?
Also, i wrote a mod that displpays the last referrer in the footer of everypage.
Im hoping that if people have their link displayed in the footer of every page they might be more inclined to link back.

[Viktor]

IBL's, or links pointing to your site are beneficial to you. OBL's, or links on your pages that point to another site are beneficial to the other site, not yours. Having too many outbound links can be detrimental to internal links that point to other pages on your site as far as PR goes.

The most important things to keep in mind when building pages is to create great content, get relevant IBL's(links point to your site), and update. Outbound links won't help you.

[XP]

I believe that search engines use outbound links like any other type of on page content to help determine factors. It may not provide huge help, but by linking to quality sites that are relevant to your page topics, youre showing search engines that you take the quality of your own pages seriously and are linking with care and intent rather than for advertising or link exchange purposes.