Can I add my voice for a basic explanation of the purpose of this component.
I work in the world of non-profit websites (phew !) and don't really understand why having links on your website to other sites is bad for your Google ranking.
Obviously I want to have my non-profit sites high on a Google search but as it doesn't cost me money there's no absolute imperative.
Maybe I need to join the SE0 club !
Anyway, a basic explanation of why this component is a good thing will more than likely cause me to give iJoomla more money.

Eddie

I understand the bleed idea, but you're going to get that anytime you have an outbound link. There are debates as to whether the use of target=blank is a good idea or not. Since it's shown as a key feature, I was looking for a more tangible reason why one would want it.

As for the tracking of outbound links, that's cool, and could be used as an advertising tool versus OpenAds HTML capability.

The target is not the issue here. The bleeding occurs just by linking to another website no matter what the target. Links are created using the the infamous 'rel="nofollow"' attribute. This prevents spiders from crawling through that link, thus giving up some of your PageRank to the other site. This is part of what iJoomla:redirect does.

I'm not say it should or should not, I'm just saying that it does. Yes, your PageRank gets negative points for linking to others using just a basic link tag.

Yes, you would in affect be bleeding to each other. I doubt that the bleeding is equal as Search engines keep their algorithms top secret. Personally, if you are advertising for someone else and they are advertising for you, as long as you have great content on your site and both sites are relevant, I think that letting you each bleed to each other is a great strategy. I would not recommend blocking spiders from those links.

While we are on the topic, I will also mention that links to you can only help and will have no negative bearing on your PageRank. It would be too easy for someone to maliciously attack your PageRank by creating a site on <Something Negative to your Business>, then creating 2000 links to your site.

Internal links are exempt from Site Bleeding. If nothing else, you would be bleeding PageRank to yourself. You do not need to block spiders from crawling your own site. iJoomla:redirect can still be used to track internal or external links click on the site from within content.

If you search google for "PageRank Bleed", you will find more information about it.

Thank you for the questions!

Yes, thanks very much for that, very useful.

There are many factors. Relevance is a big one. If the content on that site is relevant to the search, it gets kudos on those searches. There are other factors as well. The title tag is a big one. Meta data is there, but does not carry as much weight as it used to. Also, even though "almost nobody links them", the quality of the sites linking to them is important as well.

Thank you to all the questions! It is better to be informed than to just go with the flow because someone said so.

I'd like to add a different perspective on the question & answer....in that my experience, linking and the resulting PR achieved is a lot like dating.  When you date someone, you are in a sense, "dating" everyone that they have previously dated (that's how certain "social diseases" spread).  The same actually happens with PR.  If you have an understanding of PR, then the idea of negative PR should be an easy one to imagine. 

How that can happen is actually quite easy, and you may be innocent but it can be as easy as the site that you trade links with has a bad PR.  Yes, the site may be extremely relevant, and you and they may have great content.  But that's not the part that can cause the negative PR...that can come from the other site's links. 

All of the other site's PR does in fact impact upon your site's PR.  So if the other site, for example, is linked to a couple of particularly "nasty" link farms, you will absorb some of that negative PR because of your association with that site.  And so it's not just a matter of being concerned whether you and another relevant site mutually "bleed" to each other, but you can lose PR if those you link to have negative PR. 

Related to that, I'll honestly say that you are far better off taking your time to carefully evaluate other sites and then determine whether you'd like to be linked to them.  All too often, especially with newer sites, the tendency is to incorrectly assume that any reciprocal linkages are good.  Definitely not he case.

You're welcome!