Benefits of having outbound links
-
Are there any strengths (benefits) in having outbound links within the site regarding SEO?
If linking to reputable sites, would that help increase our SEO strength or does that only work if they links back to us?
-
In general, I would link out to websites as needed and as your users might find valuable, rather than trying to link out for SEO benefit. The method of creating a links resource as EGOL suggests above can be valuable, but if you're going that route you should make really, really, really sure that you're creating something of value (and something that will be updated regularly), and not linking out to every site that asks or that will link back to you in exchange. In general as far as linking to other websites goes, I would just do it where you otherwise would anyway and don't worry about/try to get any SEO benefit from it.
-
If you were to write a technical article in a magazine for example, you would typically cite anyone you referenced in your article to give them credit for the piece you referred to. So, if you write a blog post for your site, why shouldn't you do the same? It seems normal and authentic to do that and if you are going to credit them, why wrap a nofollow around it?
I agree. If you write an awesome article and it includes reference links out to other websites that are superior to your page on some aspect of the topic then your article becomes a much more valuable document for the reader.
The more valuable your article to the reader the more likely it will be that your article receives links, likes, tweets and other positive attention. That is the SEO and social value of the citation links. So, in my opinion, they do indeed have value and I often include them in my articles.
In addition, there are many pages on the web that link out to hundreds of other webpages. Let's say you are linking out to all of the medical centers and physicians who provide treatment for a rare disease. That is something that you can't find in a simple search and could take hours and hours of expert research to compile. It could be a lifesaving resource for some people. So a page that is nothing more than a list of links and one paragraph of explaination can be quite valuable and merit links and social attention from many directions.
-
Would you prefer to browse a site that is flat in terms of just providing static one dimensional information, or a hot site that is offering external resources and links to further information to give you the best experience possible? Always think of the user experience. Google probably knows that if you add links out within your content and in context to external authority sites you are attempting to give value to the visitor. So if you do link out don't use no-follow, as you are telling Google you don't trust the sites!
-
Hi, I don't think there is any SEO benefit that's been proven. If you had asked the question a couple of years or so ago, the answer would have been make sure you use nofollow on your links.
But the web is changing and Google is rewarding authenticity in what you do online.
If you were to write a technical article in a magazine for example, you would typically cite anyone you referenced in your article to give them credit for the piece you referred to. So, if you write a blog post for your site, why shouldn't you do the same? It seems normal and authentic to do that and if you are going to credit them, why wrap a nofollow around it?
Technically, you are passing SEO value from your page to theirs and diluting your own page's SEO value. But I don't know now if Google sees it and treats it that way.
So, that may not have answered your question but it may give something to discuss further.
Peter
-
Sorry I don't have an answer, but I would love to know one as well. This is a great question. Even when I know and work with a fellow webmaster in the same category, everyone always puts rel=nofollow. I understand doing this in forums or comments, but in article content or other site areas is this helpful or hurtful.
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
-
How many links can you have on sitemap.html
we have a lot of pages that we want to create crawlable paths to. How many links are able to be crawled on 1 page for sitemap.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | imjonny0 -
Link Building vs. Straight Earning Links Discussion
Hello, I'd like to start a discussion on link building outreach techniques vs. just building a good website with good 10X content. I don't like to receive unsolicited emails in my inbox, so why should the people in my industry? Also, I've seen plenty of evidence of 10X content soaring without link building outreach. But link building isn't dead of course, so can you tell me your personal experiences either way and the ethics of what you do? I especially want to hear if you've had luck with just building good websites and being successful based on the content itself, but an open discussion of either side is welcome. Leaning towards just building good websites and letting the Google algo do it's thing. Would love to hear your experiences either way. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW3 -
Should a business requestion nofollow links from businesses it has commercial relationships with?
I am working for a motor homes company that works with a network of dealers. Having just analysed the site I notice that dealers are sending links to the site - lots of them. They are all follow links and are freely given. ADDED: There are upwards of a million new affiliate backlinks and then a load of pretty normal freely given backlinks with dealers who have commission arrangements, etc., with the company on motorhome sales. Now this doesn't feel right to me because even if it isn't purposefully manipulative, it may appear so because of clear commercial relationships between my client company and the dealer businesses. So I will recommend nofollow althought the site will lose a huge number of backlinks as a result. What are your thoughts on this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Links and how they count?
We managed to get ourselves out of a penalty 6 months ago and 100 days later after the message of penalty removable we finally felt that we were moving back on track (not a lot of movement before and 50% down due to links being taken away), we have around 120 really high quality links but 95% of them are urls or the business name. Anyway we still have a couple of pages that I feel are fairly down on rankings and most of the links as mentioned above are high quality but they are either anchor text of the website name or url my main question is that when looking at my competitors I see that they have the same or less links and from much less powerful places (most I would not touch) but they seem to have a ratio of 5 - 10 % of the links are the keywords they are trying to rank for. My question is if you have 50 links from better places but they are unrelated terms such as the web site name or just urls and you have 50 links from average places but 5 - 10% are on related terms to what you are trying to rank for which ones would win out.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Getting Back Links When I Cannot Add Outbound Links to My Site
I have a collection of websites that I do not control in terms of content or page creation/editing. As a result, I have no way to add links to outside sites on any existing or new pages. Given this, how can I go about finding and requesting other sites link back to our sites/pages if I cannot offer them a link to their site in return? I know that content is a link driver, but I do not control the content, so I cannot develop new content to help drive links. I appreciate any help/advice any experts can provide.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dsinger0 -
How to stop links from sites that have plagurized my blogs
I have been hit hard by Penguin 2.0. My webmaster explains that I have many links to my articles (a medical website with quality content) from "bad sites." These sites publish my articles with my name and link to my site and it appears I have posted my articles on their site although I have not posted them-theses sites have copied and pasted my articles. Is there a way to prevent sites from posting my content on their site with links to my site?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wianno1681 -
Hidden links in badges using javascript?
I have been looking at a strategy used by a division of Tripadvisor called Flipkey. They specialize in vacation home rentals and have been zooming up in the rankings over the past few months. One of the main off-page tactics that they have been using is providing a badge to property managers to display on their site which links back. The issue I have is that it seem to me that they are hiding a link which has keyword specific anchor text by using javascript. The site I'm looking at offers vacation rentals in Tamarindo (Costa Rica). http://www.mariasabatorentals.com/ Scroll down and you'll see a Reviews badge which shows reviews and a link back to the managers profile on Flipkey. **However, **when you look at the source code for the badge, this is what I see: Find Tamarindo Vacation Rentals on FlipKey Notice that there is a link for "tamarindo vacation rentals" in the code which only appears when JS is turned off in the browser. I am relatively new to SEO so to me this looks like a black hat tactic. But because this is Tripadvisor, I have to think that that I am wrong. Is this tactic allowed by Google since the anchor text is highly relevant to the content? And can they justify this on the basis that they are servicing users with JS turned off? I would love to hear from folks in the Moz community on this. Certainly I don't want to implement a similar strategy only to find out later that Google will view it as cloaking. Sure seems to be driving results for Flipkey! Thanks all. For the record, the Moz community is awesome. (Can't wait to start contributing once I actually know what I'm doing!)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mario330 -
How do you remove unwanted links, built by your previous SEO company?
We dropped significantly (from page 1 for 4 keywords...to ranking over 75 for all) after the Penguin update. I understand trustworthy content and links (along with site structure) are the big reasons for staying strong through the update...and those sites that did these things wrong were penalized. In efforts to gain Google's trust again, we are checking into our site structure and making sure to produce fresh and relevant content on our site and social media channels on a weekly basis. But how do we remove links that were built by our SEO company, those of which could be untrustworthy/irrelevant sites with low site rankings? Try to email the webmaster of that site (using data from Open Site Explorer)?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | clairerichards0