Is it relevant in 2019 to hide external links on the site from indexing?

Question

Search Engine Optimization

Good day.
Is it relevant in 2019 to hide external links on the site from indexing? Since I read on several forums that this, on the contrary, can lower the rating of the site, because. Google sees that you want to hide something, but the bot still sees these links without problems and takes them into account when ranking.
Those. in the description of the goods on my site there are links to other sites, large online stores that have been in the issue and promotion for more than a year, and links are needed, but I would not want to take the weight of the pages from my site (it is six months old).
P.S. - I asked myself a question due to the fact that for 2 months I have not seen any shifts in the positions of keywords, although I actively promote it, write articles and buy links in social networks.

Answer 1

Nonsense, and before it was not necessary to hide links, because the principle of the Internet is links. you just need to look at the quality of those links. If you will link to porn sites, then this is a disaster. And if, after the information you posted, there is a link to Wikipedia (which has a huge trust), then this is even a plus