Intermediary links can be very helpful in establishing an author's credibility by using Aristotle's concept of Ethos, an appeal based on character. For example, if you look at my home page, it might not be immediately apparent that I am an experienced web author with some degree of knowledge in the field. However, if I were to create an author page, I could show you that I designed a home page for Eta Kappa Nu and that I have created a site on copyright issues on the WWW. I could also tell you that I spent the spring 1996 semester at RPI taking classes such as Writing to the World Wide Web and Writing for Electronic Media.
Intermediary links are not always good, however. Sometimes they are not appropriate. You, as a web author, should only use intermediary links if they add new information or clarify information already given. An intermediary link should not be there just to restate the already stated or the obvious.
Let's look at an example. Suppose I wanted to link to IBM's home page. Do I need to create an intermediary link? That depends. If I am referring to IBM in the context of being a major computer manufacturer or a big business, then probably not. If I wanted to talk about some of the things that IBM does for the community, then I might want to create a link which gives some information on what IBM does for the community that might not be readily apparent on their page. In this situation, another alternative would be to link directly to the part of IBM's web site that talks about their community service.
Another drawback of intermediary links is that they can sometimes confuse the reader. If you put a link from a name on your page to a page about you and your relevant experience in the field that you are writing about, then it will probably not come as a surprise to the reader. However, if you are writing about major computer companies and have a a link on the name IBM, then the user would probably be expecting to go to the IBM home page. If the reader doesn't care to go to the IBM home page, she might just skip over the link. For this reason, you need to make sure that any intermediary links that you have stand out as intermediary links.
As you can see, intermediary links can be very helpful, but you have to make it clear when you are going to use an intermediary link and when you are linking directly to a company or personal page.