Joomla ! weblinks and pagerank

Post I made to Joomla! forum, 2 October 2006:

I think that intro text is part of the Language file; need to edit this - and care not to include anything that could be php code (commas? - I've had occasional trouble, and some memory that with a comma).

My point is re Google pagerank.

Looking at source for a weblinks page I have, see a "link" looks like
http://www.mysite.com/links/wild-world-sites/travellingbirder.com.html - ie not directly to the site I'm linking to. This maybe means that can have clicks on the link counted, but I'm not sure it means that Google counts this as a link out to the site. (Maybe others can correct me if I'm mistaken here.)

Pagerank is something like measure of how many "votes" a website gets - how many links; but includes how "strong" the pages linking are, coupled with whether they are related to your site's content (so avoid links from "bad neighborhoods" if you can).
Complex - I only v broadly understand, I think; some folk have delved into compexities, but exact details kept secret within google.

Anyway, I think sites that you exchange links with will, if they know of pagerank, want to have your links to them pass on pagerank (ie be like votes).
- as I say, if that's currently the case at present, then maybe someone can enlighten me, and there's no problem.

Note, too, that as you link out, can actually lose some pagerank yourself. I'm not sure how much this is drain, if to relevant sites; over time, can also become valuable as a directory of sorts.

Whether or no there's an issue with weblinks, if to learn re SEO you'll want to know something re pagerank. Via google, these two pages maybe useful for info:
http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank (check out the equations! boggle my brain pretty darn fast)

Are ways of displaying pageranks for pages you visit (google toolbar, say); but the PR shown may not be what google is using. (curiouser and curiouser... - and much seems weird and wonderful about the world of SEO)