Too Many External Links A Problem
-
Client is thinking of adding a directory to an eCommerce site which users would find useful. It would help users find other services and vendors that are specific to the niche of products this site is selling. My only concern is it would create a number of external links to other sites. Even though they're related, would this diminish our standing with Google search?
-
Thanks for the input SamuelScott. Generally, I plan to keep the external links well under 100 per page, by breaking them into sub-categories. I agree with your assessment that if it's good for the viewer, then it's good with Google because all they're suggestions on site design is geared towards the end user.
My main concern, as you've stated, is that by leading users off the site, would I not reduce the page rank, and ultimately ranking. I appreciate that you seem to think, not.
-
In general, I would say no -- with a few caveats.
The general rule is that "what is good for the user is good for Google." In other words, "good SEO" is anything that makes your website more helpful to the audience that you want to attract. So, if your list of outbound links and resources are truly helpful for visitors and not some type of advertising or marketing ploy, then you should be fine.
One of my personal websites is a large affiliate website for a certain TV show. All of the pages are quality and helpful for fans of the show. (And it's got a huge social following, too.) The only page (for the most part) with affiliate links is my "merchandise store." And I've got probably close to 100 links to Amazon on that page.
At first, I blocked Google from indexing it because I thought a page full of Amazon links would hurt the site as a whole. Later, I did an experiment: I opened the page for indexing, and it ranks 3-4 for its main keyword target. Even though that page is selling something directly, it is still very helpful for my niche audience -- as is the website as a whole.
Now, that being said, there are other opinions. I'll post some links to Moz and elsewhere for your reference:
Some thoughts from Matt Cutts (but back in 2009 -- might be outdated)
There are some who state that having more than X number of backlinks on a page will drain the page's "PageRank." But personally, I wouldn't worry about that. I'd gladly lose some "PageRank" (if it even exists anymore) in order to have a comprehensive resource for my audience.
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
-
An External link question? based on relevancy
hi lets suppose we have backlinks from these sites page a has 10 ext links. and all external links are industry/niche relevant, one of them points to my site page b has 1 ext link , which points to my site. which one is giving more seo boost.?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SIMON-CULL0 -
Same page Anchor Links vs Internal Link (Cannibalisation)
Hey Mozzers, I have a very long article page that supports several of my sub-category pages. It has sub-headings that link out to the relevant pages. However the article is very long and to make it easier to find the relevant section I was debating adding inpage anchor links in a bullet list at the top of the page for quick navigation. PAGE TITLE Keyword 1 Keyword 2 etc <a name="'Keyword1"></a> Keyword 1 Content
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATP
<a name="'Keyword2"></a> Keyword 2 Content Because of the way my predecessor wrote this article, its section headings are the same as the sub-categories they link out to and boost (not ideal but an issue I will address later). What I wondered is if having the inpage achor would confuse the SERPS because they would be linking with the same keyword. My worry is that by increasing userbility of the article by doing this I also confuse them SERPS First I tell them that this section on my page talk about keyword 1. Then from in that article i tell them that a different page entirely is about the same keyword. Would linking like this confuse SERPS or are inpage anchor links looked upon and dealt with differently?0 -
By giving link do we lose our PageRank?
Hi moz fans,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atakala
I'm asking this question because I've faced this (http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/a-simple-explanation-of-pagerank)
Till now I know that when we link to a page we **don't **lose our PageRank, we just give a PageRank but not to lose it .
I mean let's say If we have a page PR 1, and another page B which is pagerank 0,
And If we give link a to page B from page A, At the end of the iteration, we have Page A PR 1 and Page B PR 0,85.
**But **he said above the link If we give a link to a page, it would result like this.
Page A PR 0,15 and Page B PR 0,85. Which one is true ?
Thank you!0 -
'Nofollow' footer links from another site, are they 'bad' links?
Hi everyone,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | romanbond
one of my sites has about 1000 'nofollow' links from the footer of another of my sites. Are these in any way hurtful? Any help appreciated..0 -
Cooking Recipes Blog Links
Hi, I am running an ecommerce store - cookware, bakeware, knives etc... I have someone I know personally that is a writer and one of her blogs is about cooking - lots of well established articles with keywords througout. Is there any harm in getting some inbound links from her blog on certain keywords? If so, should I limit the number of outgoing links per article she has? Any guidelines? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
Can too many "noindex" pages compared to "index" pages be a problem?
Hello, I have a question for you: our website virtualsheetmusic.com includes thousands of product pages, and due to Panda penalties in the past, we have no-indexed most of the product pages hoping in a sort of recovery (not yet seen though!). So, currently we have about 4,000 "index" page compared to about 80,000 "noindex" pages. Now, we plan to add additional 100,000 new product pages from a new publisher to offer our customers more music choice, and these new pages will still be marked as "noindex, follow". At the end of the integration process, we will end up having something like 180,000 "noindex, follow" pages compared to about 4,000 "index, follow" pages. Here is my question: can this huge discrepancy between 180,000 "noindex" pages and 4,000 "index" pages be a problem? Can this kind of scenario have or cause any negative effect on our current natural SEs profile? or is this something that doesn't actually matter? Any thoughts on this issue are very welcome. Thank you! Fabrizio
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Do links from twitter count in SEOMoz's Toolbar link count?
I am using the Chrome extension and looking at a SERP, when a page is said to have 2000 incoming links, does that include tweets with a link back to this page? What about retweets. Are those counted separately or as one? And what about independent tweets that have exactly the same content (tweet text + link)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davhad0 -
Domain Links or SubDomain Links, which is better?
Hi, I only now found out that www.domain.com and www.domain.com/ are different. Most of my external links are directed to www.domain.com/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
Which I understand is considered the subdomain and not the domain. Should I redirect? (and if so how?)
Should I post new links only to my domain?0