rel=nofollow tag

My interest in this tag was sparked after reading the sales copy for Feed Stomper. Specifically the paragraph where they say, "FEED STOMPER Prevents Google Page Rank Bleed!". So I did a quick search on "rel=nofollow" - which I've heard of here and there, but never really looked into.

(by the way - I didnt (and wont) purchase Feed Stomper, though I really loved the concept. But $247 PER MONTH? No way... there are too many other programs out there you can purchase cheaper, and for a one time shot, to even consider paying this kind of monthly fee!)

What this tag does (supposedly) is prevent the search engine spiders from following outbound links on your pages... which prevents your page from leaking PageRank.

Here are a couple of resources:

Nofollow Tag - New Nofollow Link Tags Explained

And more interestingly...

Rel="nofollow", bad in any way? on the High Rankings SEO Forum


The best use of this tag, in my opinion, would be on an Affiliate Site. If you have a product based site, for example, which links out to 20+ products per page, wouldnt it be beneficial NOT to pass PR to the merchant (esp eBay or Amazon - who obviously dont need it)?

I dont see this particular use of the tag to be deceptive in any way - and it doesnt affect your visitors experience... Obviously, the validity of the tag is in question. Any comments?