Do outbound links matter?
-
The value of inbound links is clear but do the number of outbound links matter when it comes to SEO and search engine rankings?
-
excellent points. thanks very much for the inputs
-
well put mate
-
Let's imagine that you have three websites with identical articles - which are of very high quality...
Website A does not link out
Website B links out to a few trashy articles per page
Website C links out to articles on other websites that do a superior job of explaining a subtopic
Which one of these sites serves the visitor the best? Which one is most likely to receive links? Which one would you prefer?
Search engines should answer the same as you do.
-
The number doesn't matter as much as the quality of the pages you link to. Linking to relevant content your visitor probably wants to know about helps you:
first by showing google that you know what the authorities in your business are.Secondly by increasing users time on site and reducing your bounce rate, both of wich are (or will be) ranking signals. Lastly by giving your visitors a good experience on your page, thus building your brand.
The best pages to link to would be non-competing, supplemental information or "cool" stuff.
-
This has not been made clear, but Matt Cutts from google has stated it can help if you link out to relevant authortive sites.
but linking out leaks Link Juice, but the best i can understand from Matts commentts is that if the sites are relevant enouth and of good authority, the gain will outweigh the loss.
There is also an argumment about sites that do not link out at ll, as not being inclueded in PR calculations, so i would suggest at least one outlink.
A page with 100 LJ, and has a outlink, is giving away 100 to that site, but if you have 9 internal links on the page also, you ae only giving out 10 and keeping 90, there is also a bit of a skew on that as the first link carries more weight, and also where the link is in the page counts, the main content area carries the most wiegth.
Also consider the page you are linking out from, if it is a low rankking page, you are probably not giving away much
dont link to spam sites, that will hurt.This page will help a lot, but please disreagard the bit about in links cant hurt you, that is old info.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Are We Doing Link Building Right? Do Certain Links Actually Matter?
I've been thinking about this as I go through my daily link building activities for clients. Do we really know as much as we hope/think we do about how Google values inbound links, which links actually matter, and how much these link signals play into rankings? For example, does Google REALLY value the fact that a business is paying to sponsor a local sports team, or to join a local chamber? For local businesses, link building is rather difficult because they don't necessarily have the resources or ability to implement ongoing Content Marketing initiatives to earn links naturally. How can we be sure that the things we recommend actually make a difference? I had my family real estate business featured in almost a dozen articles as expert sources, with links from authoritative sites like Realtor.com and others. Does Google distinguish between a profile link on a site like Realtor.com vs. being featured as an expert source on home page news? Just second guessing a lot of this today. Anyone can to share thoughts and insights?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Help in Internal Links
Which link attribute should be given to internal links of website? Do follow or No follow and why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Obbserv0 -
How soon should new links show up?
Hi I know that GWT's will not show all my links but is there a 3rd party (other than Moz of course!) tool that will? And how quickly should they show up? Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Are footer links important?
We currently display a list of links in the footer of our site to help boost SEO. They were put in place years ago and in a recent discuss with our UX team they requested we remove them from the site. Do footer links have any value? Or is this an old dated practice that no longer works? If we remove the footer links should we expect to see if have an impact on our SEO traffic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mivito0 -
Link Building for E-Commerce
Hi, Our on page optimization, albeit for a few dupe content issues, is ok - We have good keyword rich URL's, Titles, H1's and unique product descriptions. So now I want to look at building links that will boost our DA and PA's. We have over 2000 products on the store and around 130 categories/subcategories -and I would appreciate any views on where to start - My initial view is to get backlinks from the relevant manufacturer websites to the "shop by brand" page on our site related to these manufacturers - What other strategies should I look at? Thanks, Ben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
Should We Link To Our News?
We just started an "In the News" section on our webpage. We are not sure what would be the best for SEO purposes. Should we link to the news websites that have the stories about our company, even if they have no link bank? Or should we just take screenshots of the news article and only link to articles that link back to us (this is what we a currently doing)? Here is our news page, http://www.buyautoparts.com/News/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | joebuilder0 -
Outbound link to PDF vs outbound link to page
If you're trying to create a site which is an information hub, obviously linking out to authoritative sites is a good idea. However, does linking to a PDF have the same effect? e.g Linking to Google's SEO starter guide PDF, as opposed to linking to a google article on SEO. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | underscorelive0 -
SEO from links in frames?
A site was considering linking to us. Their web page is delivered entirely via frames. Humans can see the links on the page, but it's not visible in source. I'm guessing it means Google can't detect the links, and there is no SEO effect, but I wanted to confirm. Here's the site: http://www.uofc-ulsa.tk/ Example links are the Princeton Review and Kaplan on the right sidebar. Here's the source code: view-source:http://www.uofc-ulsa.tk/ Do those links have any SEO impact?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lighttable0