Removing any nonreciprocal external links

When I started building my website, I never knew about SEO yet. However, when I got to learn about SEO, I realized that it was necessary to have many inbound links coming to your website and as little external links or outgoing links. Usually, the outbound links that I have placed in my website where meant as references to websites which have provided my website with content and materials for building the website. Therefore, without being detrimental to the websites to which my outbound links refer to, I removed all of these external, outgoing but nonreciprocal links: most of them just placed as a natural referral link and without any reciprocal relationship or link exchange agreement.