To clarify:
My first post on this subject -
here - says nothing about trying to manipulate the search engines and that is definitely not my intention. The only time I mention search engines is to make sure that any action on my/our part does not break their rules.
There is no way that my Resources page can be construed as a link farm when the only sites linked from it are sites that logically follow from and could interest departing visitors - ie. visitors who were leaving a site about money. Thus, a site about LLCs is included but a site about fencing is not.
I don't believe it forms a network of nonrelevant sites any more than linking between relevant sites does, where there is a relevance and a link between A and B and between B and C but not between C and A.
But coming back to search engines - of course, I am interested in any links I create on my site benefitting me on search engines. And I thought I made it clear that links need to be relevant. And one-way.
And I never said we would ALL be linking to EACH OTHER. That obviously would create a link farm because of the generally diverse nature of our individual businesses. I envisaged one-way links to relevant sites. I said, and I quote, "If you think any of my sites will benefit your visitors..." = relevance. And the sites to which I linked are sites that would be relevant to my visitors.
I am interested in linking as was intended and has been stated by Google. I am not interested in creating special pages designed to directly influence any search procedure. The links I have suggested would not, I believe, put a Resource page in bad light if we adhere to the Google guidelines.
Frankly, I feel we get too clever about linking and fall foul of our own cleverness. Providing a link to a site that relates to the content on our own site for our visitors when they are ready to leave us, is the purpose of the link - and very easy to do. It is no more complicated than that.