Maximum number of links

[Paul78]

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

[mrdavidingram]

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

[Paul78]

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

[mrdavidingram]

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,

[Paul78]

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.....

[mrdavidingram]

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

[Paul78]

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

[mrdavidingram]

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.

[mrdavidingram]

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.

[mrdavidingram]

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

[Paul78]

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

[mrdavidingram]

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

[Paul78]

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

[mrdavidingram]

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

[Paul78]

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

[mrdavidingram]

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

[Paul78]

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

[mrdavidingram]

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