External linking on a company blog
-
This has been bothering me for a long time.
Our company has a sub-domain blog that gets a respectable amount of traffic but not a lot of SER. Most of our traffic comes from social shares (although we do rank really high for a few key searches).
The blog manager is convinced that providing external links to additional resources or source material "dilutes the SEO juice" for the blog. URLs are provided, but they aren't linked.
Attempts to sway her to the idea that external links are actually Good Things
have been stonewalled.Tell me I'm right and why.
-
That's the root site - yeah - we've been disavowing a LOT of links lately.
-
I know it's quite off topic but just had a look at your site on Open Site Explorer. You have a load of anchor text to your site for the words "Viagra" and "<a class="clickable title link-pivot" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text" data-text="penis" data-id="9619270841">penis". You might want to look into that! (The bad links that is)</a>
Assuming your site is www.amsvans.com?
-
Matt Cutts has an answer for that question.
-
It would be interesting to know whether making the external link a No Follow makes a difference or not.
In the users eyes it makes no difference if it is No Follow, whereas in Googles eyes they treat the the link in a different way, but do they treat the gesture in the same way!?
-
It sounds like your blog manager assumes the search engine algorithms have no intelligence behind them...like it's all a matter of gaming or following a prescription. Whether you're trying to preserve link equity or not, you have to consider what the end user experience is... just as Google and other search engines say they're trying to do.
As the bot crawls your page, it recognizes a URL (whether it's a link or not). Then, it asks itself, "Is it easier for the reader to copypasta a URL or to simply click on link?" The answer is always click, which is one check against you in the multitude of things search engine bots look at on your site.
Changing this one thing probably won't affect your rankings much, but it's lots and lots of little things like this that sometimes make the difference.
TL;DR. Tell your blog manager to stop making the reader experience worse.
-
Firstly I have no proof of whether or not it is good for rankings so you may want to stop reading now.
Having said that... My personal view has always been that if the link is going off to somewhere that adds extra value to what you are blogging about then it is worth linking to.
I wouldn't just put a link to the homepage of a industry relevant website for no reason.
Wouldn't the internet be an awful place if posts didn't link off to other insightful or funny points of views or videos.
If I was Google I would want to promote sharing of useful information so I think there would be a little algorithmic boost for sharing other sites.
Google says design your website for users, so I think it makes perfect sense. Why would you be punished for supplying good information?
....And for some further insightful reading see this link I just discovered!: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/5-reasons-you-should-link-out-to-others-from-your-website
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
-
Unnatural Links To Your Site — Impacts Links warning, Should I do something?
Hi, I got: "Unnatural Links To Your Site — Impacts Links Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to pages on this site. Some links may be outside of the webmaster’s control, so for this incident we are taking targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole. " I don't see any dropping at rankings, could the best solution here to be, just to leave everything as it is and be more careful with the link building in the future? Or is there a danger that Google gives further penalties if I don't act on this one do something? I am little afraid that if I start removing links, my rankings will drop, even though they have remained same if don't do anything? Any help is appreciated.
Link Building | | pok3rplay3r0 -
How do I find links that link to several competitor sites?
I want to find linking pages that link to several of my competitors. Those are likely to be lists of tools I can also add my website to. My application is a dashboard tool/kanban board. So if I find a page linking both to say kanbannery.com and kanbanflow.com it will be likely to be a collection of links to kanban tools, ad my application can be relatively easy added. Magestic SEO has a "clique hunter" - is there anything similar in MOZ suite of tools?
Link Building | | kanbanchi.com0 -
Nasty links
Hi My first q on here (hoorah!), and it's about links (boo!). I've got what appears to be a handful (but worryingly, increasing in number) of links pointing to my site like this: http://condos.mrgulffront.com/florida-condos-for-sale/320-scenic-gulf-drive-miramar-beach-fl-32550-mls-567591/ I've made contact with the sites concerned, and had only one positive response who flatly denied all knowledge of it. The issue (as far as I can see) is that as in the above example the links (on the bottom right in the grey box) are forever changing so not always visible. Can anyone offer any guidance as to these kinds of nasty links.... I'm right at the v beginning on this "path of seo understanding" so please don't assume prior knowledge! Thanks in advance.... tom
Link Building | | T-J-I0 -
Blog Co-Op - Purchasing Links in Relevant Blogs
Hello, Our SEO company has recommended participating in a blog co-op, where we can purchase a link on a relevant blog, either submitting our own content or letting them find relevant anchor text in an article on their site and adding a link back to us. Links are running $40 - 100 based on Page Rank of the blog. I realize that it is BETTER not to buy a link, but is this going to hurt us if the blog content is relevant to our industry?
Link Building | | eastcoastchairandbarstool0 -
Thoughts on creating a resource/recommend links page in order to attain links?
Hey guys, Just wondering, how does Google view reciprocal link building nowadays? I've heard in the past that it's something that Google isn't particularly keen on. However, more recently, I've also read that - as long as the links are decent (and in moderation) - link exchanging is by no means a bad thing. The reason I ask is that I'm thinking of creating a "resource/recommended links page" for a client of mine. Because of their industry, it's really apparent that attaining links is often only possible if there is the opportunity of a reciprocal link in return. Therefore, I'd need to have a resource/recommend links page of my own. Is this something I should go ahead with to make it much easier to attain links? Or should I try to avoid reciprocal links and attempt to pinpoint one-way linking opportunities - even if they're thin on the ground? Any help much as appreciated as always. Cheers.
Link Building | | Webrevolve0 -
Are links with space considered to be the same as links with %20?
I wonder if Google would consider those three links to be the same? http://www.example.com/test page.html http://www.example.com/test page.html http://www.example.com/test+page.html
Link Building | | lucek0 -
Getting a link from a blog on every page querying what OSE is suggesting
Hi Guys My client has been offered a link from someone within their industry on their blog. The blog has 20 categories and multiple (hundreds if not more pages within each category). The owner of the website has said that would be happy to give my client a link on each of their pages (including their homepage). They have done this for another couple of people who they like before, so I typed these domains into OSE and noticed that for each page it shows a link and also the page authority. Domain Authority of this blog giving the link is 71 Home Page PA - 76 About us PA - 60 it goes on.........the least PA being shown is 52 so lets for arguements sake say the other 18 or say categories are PA of 52 too. My question is surely the OSE is not accurate to imply that my client could be passed page authority from 18 categories at 52 each + home page of 76 + about me page of 60? Hopefully you understand the point I'm trying to make
Link Building | | RankStealer0 -
Do image links with no alt tags pass link value?
"... an image link with no alt tag is useless to search engines..." according to a Nov 2007 seomoz blog post. Is this still the case in 2011? I ask because I'm about to obtain a banner link on a high-traffic site (chiefly for the clickthrough value) but I notice the site uses neither "title" nor "alt" tags.
Link Building | | Jeepster0