My site contains many links that were user generated so I've added a rel=nofollow to them. I'm considering removing that tag at least partially, as these are most of my outgoing links and I've come to understand it isn't a good SEO sign to not have outgoing followed links. Although these are external sites, I have some data on the popularity and categorization of these sites.

I'm trying to decide between two options:

• Removing the nofollow link for popular sites in most categories.
• Removing the nofollow for links that are in specific categories that represent the categorization I would like to achieve for my site. For example if this is a site about Basketball only remove the nofollow for links that are from sport sites.

As these are both not exactly natural approaches, can this hurt me? Which option would you recommend?