Should I add links to external informational sites?
-
.
-
2011 eanking factors survey finds acorrelation: those sites that contain outbound links are tending to rank better: http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#metrics-5. It further more states somewhere (maybe in the video, I could not find) that linkig to Microsoft may bring better results, while linking to some other big company (exact company name is there you can look for it) triggered a fallback in rankings.
So linking to quality content by itself may should not cause a fallback.
-
In fact, NOT linking out and hoarding your PR/link juice could actually hurt you instead.
I don't have any proof that this is true but this is what I believe.... I believe that if you do lose linkjuice by linking out you receive instead an optimization bonus for linking out that is proportional to the value that would be delivered by a link from the target site back to yours. This is why I regularly link out to sites that are much better than mine.
-
Sorry, I noticed later that you have above the fold buy noe button as well.
-
Yes. So you adapt the content and you are able to place those buy now buttons that you have on your home page for example. if user goes off your page than he may be just wandering around, reading the content, than starting another search for surety bonds. Don't misunderstand me, I don't say that exactly this will happen for sure, but you give a chance for it to happen.
In our short term memory we can deal with 5-6 infos at a time. Your page is one. the content of the new page is the second. The environment the user sits in adds the third and maybe the forth. Changing channel on the webradio while reading: fifth. So I am trying to make you see that if short term memory is overload than you may be getting off the original path you came from. This is human nature and psychology: you can't hold everything i mind. You give user the CHANCE to go away.
I would not give a chance by publishing the same content on my site and placing the buy now conversion buttons so that you offer users the next step to take to become a customer.
Back to your main page: I would place that Buy now button a bit higher. I have once read a survey that states that around 80% of clicks on a website happen above the fold. I could not fond that for you but here is a comparison for you between above the fold and below the fold advertisements: http://emediavitals.com/content/improving-ad-performance-above-fold-repetition-brings-more-clicks. Above the fold is absolute winner.
-
"Links to external sites would cause me to lose out on link juice and would hurt me in google's eyes."
That may be the case back in 2001 but not so much anymore. In fact, NOT linking out and hoarding your PR/link juice could actually hurt you instead.
-
Thanks for your input. You are of the same mindset as me. I just want to make sure i'm not nuts for thinking this. Someone in my office said that placing links to external sites would cause me to lose out on link juice and would hurt me in google's eyes.
-
I created the links so that they always open in a new window. That was my attempt at keeping the user from forgetting where they came from. I'm not fully understanding your comment on conversion points and adapting the content to my site. Are you suggesting I have all content on my page vs. sending them away from the site?
-
Maybe I would adapt the content to my site so that the user is still able to read it, but you are able to add conversion points that lead the users back to your conversion channel. If user leaves your site can find another intresting link on government site than click through than not knowing where he came from. As far as the content is on your page you can control where the user is able to click from a specific page.
-
Well, you said it "Either way, in my mind, it's useful to the user and that trumps everything"
Optimize for the end-user, and the rest will fall into place. Don't be scared to link out if it's useful information for your user.
These days, nobody wants to link out to anybody. It's ridiculous. The internet is supposed to be a complete world of information, but every site on the net wants to keep everything to themselves.
I've come across articles in the past about how Bing takes this into consideration. They share the same ideology as you in that your website should be a 'one-stop shop' for the user.
And there's sure nothing wrong with linking to any government agencies as their content is usually 100% legit and accurate. Nothing to worry about there.
Go for it.
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
-
Disavowing Affiliate Links - Domain or Actual Affiliate Link?
Hi everyone, Hope you're all having a great day, I have a question in regards to a site which I am about to disavow. Over the past 2 months a certain page of ours has dropped from the 2nd page, all the way to the 7th. I haven't been able to diagnose why, however, yesterday I discovered that a site has been using an Lafitte link on his sidebar, the link is a do-follow. Webmaster tools indicates that this site has linked to us over 24,000 times. I understand that this link could potentially ruin our rankings - however, in terms of disavowing, what is the best approach here? Do I disavow their domain, or do I disavow the actual affiliate link also? The link is placed within an image, once the image is clicked it redirects you to another link for a second then redirects to our money site. We have got in touch with our affiliate program and they have made the link a no-follow, however, we are pretty certain this site is causing issues for us and we want to go ahead and disavow. Thanks, Brett
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0 -
ECommerce website with link to manufactures site for ordering - Should these links be follow or no follow?
Dear Mozzers, I have a couple of questions regarding link juice and whether I should have do follow or no follow links ? We have an affiliate eCommerce website and on our product pages we have a "Order online " button which will go our subdomain on the manufactures site in order for the user to complete the online ordering process So it's - www.ourcompany.co.uk - "Order Online Button" - www.manufactuer.ourcompany.co.uk Should this " Order online Button" be a Follow or No Follow link ? I ask this as currently from looking at Majestic seo , these "order online " buttons on my product pages seems to be Follow links so am I losing potential link juice by sending it externally ? Am I correct in assuming by changing it to be no follows, I would increase the link juice going elsewhere internally? thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Fix broken external links on noindex, follow pages no one visits?
Would you take the time to fix external links on your site on pages that are noindex, follow on pages that no one ever visits? The only reason to do it would be to present a tidier site to Google, but would it really care if those pages are noindex/folllow? The thing that makes it a non-trivial amount of work is that there are hundreds of these on a large site. Do you think Google cares, if they're noindex/follow? I know the safe answer is always fix everything, but really it has to get weighed against the likely benefit and other projects with a limited amount of time to work with. Best... Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Charity links
Quick question - Are links on charity websites with a small mention about what your company does good links to go for?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson1 -
Best strategy for "product blocks" linking to sister site? Penguin Penalty?
Here is the scenario -- we own several different tennis based websites and want to be able to maximize traffic between them. Ideally we would have them ALL in 1 site/domain but 2 of the 3 are a partnership which we own 50% of and why are they are off as a separate domain. Big question is how do we link the "products" from the 2 different websites without looking spammy? Here is the breakdown of sites: Site1: Tennis Retail website --> about 1200 tennis products Site2: Tennis team and league management site --> about 60k unique visitors/month Site3: Tennis coaching tip website --> about 10k unique visitors/month The interesting thing was right after we launched the retail store website (site1), google was cranking up and sending upwards of 25k search impressions/day within the first 45 days. Orders kept trickling in and doing well overall for first launching. Interesting thing was Google "impressions" peaked at about 60 days post launch and then started trickling down farther and farther and now at about 3k-5k impressions/day. Many keywords phrases were originally on page 1 (position 6-10) and now on page 3-8 instead. Next step was to start putting "product links" (3 products per page) on site2 and site3 -- about 10k pages in total with about 6 links per page off to the product page (1 per product and 1 per category). We actually divided up about 100 different products to be displayed so this would mean about 2k links per product depending on the page. FYI, those original 10k pages from site2 and site3 already rank very well in Google and have been indexed for the past 2+ years in there. Most popular word on the sites is Tennis so very related. Our rationale was "all the websites are tennis related" and figured that the links on the latest and greatest products would be good for our audience. Pre-Penguin, we also figured this strategy would also help us rank for these products as well for when users are searching on them. We are thinking through since traffic and gone down and down and down from the peak of 45 days ago, that Penguin doesn't like all these links -- so what to do now? How to fix it and make the Penguin happy? Here are a couple of my thoughts on fixing it: 1. Remove the "category link" in our "product grouping" which would cut down the link by 1/3rd. 2. Place a "nofollow" on all the links for the other "product links". This would allow us to get the "user clicks" from these while the user is on that page. 3. On our homepage (site2 & site3), place 3 core products that change frequently (weekly) and showcase the latest and greatest products/deals. Thought is to NOT use the "nofollow" on these links since it is the homepage and only about 5 links overall. Heck part of me debated on taking our top 1000 pages (from the 10k page) and put the links ONLY on those and distribute about 500 products on them so this would mean only 2 links per product -- it would mean though about 4k links going there. Still thinking #2 above could be better? Any other thoughts would be great! Thanks, Jeremy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jab10000 -
Transfer link juice from old to new site
Hi seomozzers, The design team is building a new website for one of our clients. My role is to make sure all the link juice is kept. My first question is, should I just make 301s or is there another technique to preserve all the link juice from the old to new site that I should be focusing on? Second Question is that ok to transfer link juice using dev urls like www.dev2.example.com (new site) or 182.3456.2333? or should I wait the creation of real urls to do link juice transfer? Thank you 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
What on-page/site optimization techniques can I utilize to improve this site (http://www.paradisus.com/)?
I use a Search Engine Spider Simulator to analyze the homepage and I think my client is using black hat tactics such as cloaking. Am I right? Any recommendations on to improve the top navigation under Resorts pull down. Each of the 6 resorts listed are all part of the Paradisus brand, but each resort has their own sub domain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0 -
Image Links Vs. Text Links, Questions About PR & Anchor Text Value
I am searching for testing results to find out the value of text links versus image links with alt text. Do any of you have testing results that can answer or discuss these questions? If 2 separate pages on the same domain were to have the same Page Authority, same amount of internal and external links and virtually carry the same strength and the location of the image or text link is in the same spot on both pages, in the middle of the body within paragraphs. Would an image link with alt text pass the same amount of Page Authority and PR as a text link? Would an image link with alt text pass the same amount of textual value as a text link? For example, if the alt text on the image on one page said "nike shoes" and the text link on the other page said "nike shoes" would both pass the same value to drive up the rankings of the page for "nike shoes"? Would a link wrapped around an image and text phrase be better than creating 2 links, one around the image and one around the text pointing to the same page? The following questions have to do with when you have an image and text link on a page right next to each other, like when you link a compelling graphic image to a category page and then list a text link underneath it to pass text link value to the linked-to page. If the image link displays before the text link pointing to a page, would first link priority use the alt text and not even apply the anchor text phrase to the linked page? Would it be best to link the image and text phrase together pointing to the product page to decrease the link count on the page, thus allowing for more page rank and page authority to pass to other pages that are being linked to on the page? And would this also pass anchor text value to the link-to page since the link would include an image and text? I know that the questions sound a bit repetitive, so please let me know if you need any further clarification. I'd like to solve these to further look into ways to improve some user experience aspects while optimizing the link strength on each page at the same time. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | abernhardt
Andrew0