Does it ever make sense, from an SEO perspective, to link to your competetors? As an example, say I have a page dedicated to ‘ABC Widgets’ and it is ranked in the top 10. Would it ever be beneficial for me to link to other ‘ABC Widget’ pages that I’m in competition against? Would it ever be beneficial to link to ANY other ‘ABC Widget’ publishers?
It would certainly be beneficial to them. 
Perhaps if they linked back to you it might be of some worth, but otherwise, I suspect not. (Happy to be contradicted, though.)
It would be beneficial for them not you. Otherwise, anyone could just stuff their pages with an endless amount of external links.
Yes it is beneficial. linking in quality sites will defiantly help in getting good PR on search engine.
The OP is talking about linking to competitor sites. Could you explain how that would be beneficial for the OP himself?
get one way backlink from your competitors & that will be more effective.
Have you read this thread properly? The original question is quite clear, and Guido has reiterated it in the post above yours. The question relates to linking to a competitor’s site, not obtaining links from one.
Thanks everyone.
The reason I ask is that I’ve seen ‘quality outgoing links’ listed as a signal that Google uses in determining a page’s rank, but framed in that the outgoing links must be ‘relevant’ to the topic at hand. So I’m trying to figure out how creating a quality link to a relevant site that is relevant to my article is good for me because I’m linking to relevant content, but also bad for me because those articles will likely be in competition with me because they are similar.
Maybe the idea is to link to related articles that aren’t necessarily in competition with me for the exact keywords contained in my article?
[font=verdana]This is precisely the kind of “gaming the system” that Google is trying to stop! So while you might find that, with the current algorith, you can sneak a few extra points in for your site by putting in those links, it’s a dangerous game … there’s nothing to say that the Pelican Update or whatever comes next won’t knock you onto page 7 for it. Ultimately, any tactics you use that aren’t directly for the benefit of users are a risk.
It should be possible to find sites/pages to link to that are relevant to your content, and will be of interest to your readers, without linking to sites that are directly competing with yours.[/font]
I’m not sure about this theory I have. Since your website is related to the website you’re linking with - wouldn’t it be sort of like giving reference to another related website besides yours. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts about Link Blending.
Link blending is the process of building links to your site as well as other authoritative sites. ~quicksprout.com/2012/02/09/how-to-leverage-link-blending-and-stage-2-link-building-to-maximize-your-rankings/
Google is giving credits for websites with related links inbound and outbound. So isn’t that a point to consider when linking to other sites? Well IMO it can still benefit you because you have related topics. Although in a marketeers point of view, why would I help my competitor to gain a visitor with the help of my website? When I can just have them all to myself.
This will drive you more traffic? Really? How’s that?
For example: i have skincare tips website, and if i link to the another skin website. There are chances to visit my website when the visitor come to the competitor site where i link. The anchor text must be cache and related sothat the visitor might think that he could find his need in my website.
Ok, I think we are talking about two different things here.
This thread talks about outbound links: links you put on your website and that link to another website (the competitor’s site). So people visit your site, click the link and are gone to your competitor.
You are talking about backlinks: you put a link to your website on someone else’s website. People visit that other website, click the link and come to your site.
The question in this thread is not about backlinks, it’s about outbound links.