Maximum number of links
-
Hi there,
I have just written an article that is due to be posted on an external blog, the article has potentially 3 links that could link to 3 different pages on my website, is this too much? what do you recommend being the maximum number of links?
Thanks for any help
-
At a domain level (and exact maths aside), yes. However at a page level (i.e within an article), then the link juice is evenly distributed across the links on the page.
It gets complicated when the other link strength factors are brought into it. For example if there were two links on a page, one in the article and one in the page footer. The link juice would be distributed 50/50, however the footer link wouldn't be given the same importance and strength as the one in the article.
This goes for your links in the article too. Although the link juice will be spread evenly, there are still other ranking factors that skew the importance of the links, such as the order and placement.
So the number of links you have in the article effects the PageRank distribution, but there are many other factors surrounding links. The main one that will effect this issue is the diminishing returns of links to the same website (e.g yours).
So if you have 4 links on a page they might get the PageRank spread evenly at 25% each, however this doesn't mean that they will all carry the same weight and value to your pages they are landing at.
Cheers
-
I am a little confused, because earlier you had said:
The first link gives you 100% SEO benefit
The second link gives you 25% SEO benefit
The third link gives you 5% SEO benefit
The fourth link gives you <1% SEO benefit
Does the above still apply?
Thanks
-
Yes, technically they each pass 20% of that pages link juice.
However, things get a lot more tricky as the importance of the links vary on things like order, and page placement. i.e the value of a link in the footer of an article doesn't carry as much weight as a link in the first paragraph etc
Thanks,
-
Just to clarify David, if I own the domain seomoz.org and place an article on searchengineland.com with 5 links pointing back to seomoz.org those links pass 20%? not:
link 1 :100%
link 2: 50% and so on.....
-
Ah, now your right in regards in link juice distribution on a single page. It is literally divided by the number of links, so 5 links would get 20% each, 100 links would get 1% each.
In this sense, there is technically no limit in how many outbound links you would have to your site, although obviously there would be some spam signals hit after a while.
So if you have three seperate pages you want to share a single external page's link juice, then you can work on the basis it will be split evenly. But again, the more it is split the less benefit you will see come through to your pages until there is practically null.
The rule of diminishing returns applies to the number of links that are individually benefiting you from a single domain. So from a pure SEO link juice point of view, there is no more benefit in having 8 links coming from example.com than having 3 links.
Cheers
-
I THINK I read somewhere that if you had let's say 4 links in your article all pointing to different pages on your website, those 4 links would all pass the same value (link juice) 25%, however if you had just 1 link in the article it would get the full 100%, maybe I am just making this up or dreamt it, who knows.
Your understanding could also be correct, has this came from research? has anyone here at SEOMOZ mentioned anything of this, WBF?
Thanks
-
To be honest though, I think my example above is a bit too excessive. Somewhere in the middle would be more accurate (100/50/25) with a steep drop off after that.
-
To be honest though, I think my example above is a bit too excessive. Somewhere in the middle would be more accurate (100/50/25) with a steep drop off after that.
-
Yes, sadly it diminishes a lot steeper than that, I will have a dig around and see if I can find some study data.
Sadly, only the boffins at Google HQ know the exact figures.
Cheers
-
This all makes sense David.
My understanding was that if you have 1 link in the article then this gets 100% SEO benefit, if you have 2 links in the article the SEO benefit is 50% for each link, if you have 3 links in the article the SEO benefit is 33.333% for each an so on....
Have I got it wrong then?
Thanks
-
So this isn't the exact maths, but for arugments sake:
The first link gives you 100% SEO benefit
The second link gives you 25% SEO benefit
The third link gives you 5% SEO benefit
The fourth link gives you <1% SEO benefit
After that, there is no additional SEO benefit of received links from that page.
I'm not taking about link juice distribution, I'm talking about the actual SEO benefit each link with provide you. That's why you will always here SEO's tell you the first link is the most important, and why people only tend to put a couple of links in a guest post or article, as there is really very little value after that.
Looking at it from a purely SEO point of view (so not consideration for branding, advertising or other general marketing), you want to be getting links from lots of unique domains rather than lots of links from a single domain.
Of course if you had 50 links coming from say the BBC there would be other benefits such as the amount of traffic you'd get and the brand association, but if you're looking at it from purely an SEO link juice point of view then there is no real value after getting a couple of links from the same domain.
Cheers
David
-
Thanks David.
The article in question has 3 valid links. You say "After a while there is no additional value at all" what do you mean by this?
Thanks
-
Ah sorry, I see what you mean.
The amount of links you place on a single page will have diminishing returns, so the first is valuable, the second less so, the third less so. After a while there is no additional value at all.
Personally, in that scenario again I would look to use 2 or 3 links, one branded in the footer and one or two in the article body (again, only if they made sense and fitted in naturally.
The main thing to consider in that scenario is the wishes of the Webmaster you're working with. Some only want you to use a single link in guest content, other are of a 'more the merrier' philosophy (although you still don't want to go link crazy).
2-3 is good for the user, good for the Webmaster, and good for your SEO
Cheers
David
-
Hi David,
Sorry for not being clear.
What I meant is an external website, for example let's say my website is seomoz.org and I am placing an article on searchengineland.com, what is the maximum amount of links you would use linking back to seomoz.org? I take it the more links you have pointing back to seomoz.org the less linkjuice this is passed, right?
Thanks
-
Hi Gary,
Just so I'm clear, you mean if you had xcompany.com and then xcompany.blogspot.com, how many links per blog post would you send to the main domain?
If that's the case, yes I'd recommend using the same rules and treating it as an internal blog.
If you don't mind me saying, I'd never recommend hosting a blog externally from your main site unless it's completely unavoidable. Is there no way to integrate both? The easiest way is to just host Wordpress in the subfolder of your main site, and match the theme to your main brand.
Thanks
David
-
Hi David,
Thanks for your feedback.
What about external blogs pointing back to your website, would you still keep this rule of thumb with 2-3 links per article on an external blog?
Thanks
-
Hi Gary,
I tend to use 2-3 internal links in a 400 word article as a rule of thumb, although there is going to be no harm in using more if the article calls for it (i.e you genuinely need to reference several sources on your site)
On the other hand, you don't want to be forcing links into articles just to meet a 3 link quota. If there is genuinely no relevant reference or keyword uses that sensibly links to another site, then don't try to force the issue.
Try to think of it from a users point of view, i.e when reading this article does the link make sense, and would it be a logical and positive path for a visitor to follow.
Cheers
David
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
-
Can anyone please explain the real difference between backlinks, 301 links, and redirect links?which one is better to rank a website? i am looking for the help for one of my website
Can anyone please explain the real difference between backlinks, 301 links, and redirect links? which one is better to rank a website? I am looking for help for one of my website vacuum cleaners
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hshajjajsjsj3880 -
Is Link equity / Link Juice lost to a blocked URL in the same way that it is lost to nofollow link
Hi If there is a link on a page that goes to a URL that is blocked in robots txt - is the link juice lost in the same way as when you add nofollow to a link on a page. Any help would be most appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andrew-SEO0 -
Poor internal linking?
Hi guys, Analyzing a large e-commerce site 10,000 pages on Magento and not getting much organic traffic to level 3 sub-category pages, the URLs are like: Primary Keyword Target: BODY MOISTURISERS https://www.adorebeauty.com.au/skin-care/bath-body/moisturisers.html Primary Keyword Target: LIP MASKS https://www.adorebeauty.com.au/skin-care/masks/lip-masks.html Plus another 40 other URLs at level 3 with low organic performance. Authority of the domain is strong, so it's not an authority issue I believe its internal linking. Besides linking form the blog and breadcrumbs is there anything we can do to improve internal linking to these level 3 pages? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nattyhall0 -
GWT - Links to website - Are they accurate
Hi I am looking at GWT more and more and I starting not to believe the information within it. For example we had a link on XYZ.com say 6 months ago. This link as been removed no reference to our website, however it still showing on GWT inbound links. I have noticed quite a few sites which have no relevance to our site. Is anyone else finding the information wrong in WMT
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
Link Juice + Site Structure
Hi All, I have attached a simple website model.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
Page A is the home page attracting 1000 visitors per month.
One click away is Page B with 400 visitors per month, so on and so forth. You get an idea of the flow and clicks required to get to various pages. I have purposely placed Pages E-G to be 3 clicks away as they yield very little traffic. 1] Is this the best way to distribute link juice?
2] Should I point Pages C + D back to page A to influence its Page Rank (PA) Any other useful advice would be appreciated. Thanks Mark vafnchI0 -
Are Links from Homepage safe?
I have the option of getting a link from 2 websites home pages. My site is a financial service website. I want to know if it is safe to do so. The first site is a hotel site, so their content has no relation to my site And the second is a Google News website about finances They have offered me a section in the sidebar to have a sentence or 2 about my site with a link. Can you tell me would these be safe to get? I don't want to be hit by any penalty
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0 -
Nofollow links in Google Webmaster
I've noticed nofollow links showing up in my Google Webmaster tools "links to your site" list. If they are nofollow why are they showing up here? Do nofollow links still count as a backlink and transfer PR and authority?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NoCoGuru1 -
Linking to Authorities
Hello, I know that if its good for the user, its not a bad move. But for this question I am specifically asking for how it affects my ranking. Does it help my ranking to link to appropriate authority sites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tylerfraser
Have you done any tests to see if linking out to authoritative sites like .gov info pages, industry leaders, etc. help with a sites ranking. I am thinking about taking of all of these outgoing links and just link to my important pages. Thank you, Tyler0