Appered In section on home page

Hi bobptz

As you have stated

Quoting you...

"We are thinking to create an "APPEARED IN" section in our home page, linking back to all those places.  The links will be NOFOLLOW."

Since the links will be "No-follow" Google will know they are not for link manipulation.  There is no harm in doing the links. 

As for placement, maybe the homepage is a good place, maybe an inner page will be better or better yet, do the home page addition like you're wanting and add a link to an inner page that expounds on said topic matter.

That last suggestion could provide some additional help in ranking.. test it..

I just wouldn't link out to them, but keep the list handy in case anybody asks for verification. Rule of thumb with conversion, the more links they have to escape, the less likely they are to convert. This is statistically factual, so I'd avoid. From an SEO point of view, if you add nofollow it should be fine.

Will google punish us for having a section with 15-20 links, linking back to places that also give us links?

Is it that nobody can answer this?

If the links are nofollow its not an issue for google.

The one thing to remember with placing new links on your home page, it will be weakening each link currently on the page. As your home page typically is your most powerful page in terms of PageRank you should use wisely,