Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Do backlinks need to be clicked to pass linkjuice?
-
Hi all:
Do backlinks need to be clicked to pass linkjuice? Is so, can someone explain how much traffic is needed from a backlink to count as linkjuice?
Thanks for the help.
Audrey.
-
Backlinks do not have to be clicked in order for them to count as linkjuice. Recently my org (missionquest.org) joined MOZ and it helped our backlinks and improved our SEO.
-
I would be surprised.
Google knows a lot, but not everything. Unless GA tracking code is installed google shall not know about things such a user click.
If they were passing page juices only for clicked backlink they would be ruling out a too big chunk of the web. It doesn't sound logic to me.
Also it doesn't sound realistic to analyze all users click in the world when refreshing google index, they do have a lot of metal, but not that much.
-
So, are you saying that a link having traffic kind of disqualifies it as spammy? Or at least in the eyes of Google?
-
Absolutely not. Spam links still work fantastic for ranking a site (temporarily). Those are links that never get seen or clicked, they pretty much just get crawled. Don't go the spam route, but also don't worry too much about people clicking links. I've gotten a ton of great links that have sent very, very little referral traffic, meaning links on popular posts still don't guarantee getting any/many clicks.
-
I don't think so. I usually fetch and render then submit my pages anytime I add one to my site, or make a significant change, like adding content or changing images. Nothing unnatural about it.
-
Good idea. I wonder if it would seem "un-natural" however?
-
Submitting the page to Google for Indexing doesn't guarantee that the backlinks will be crawled, but it can be a good way to try to force them to be crawled.
-
In that case, wouldn't it be ideal to submit the page to google indexing right after it's published?
-
I think it's about Page popularity and users engagements. Popularity in search results means a lot of spiders in the page. And, when a user clicks the link, there's a spider follows him to the new page. And it's all about the spider discovered your page and your link as well (as I think).
-
In fact, it's not like that.
I will tell you a very important rule about backlinks and really hard to find it. Tha main point is that the link need to be discovered by Google. And, the page which contain the link must have popularity in Google search results which mean a lot of people entering the page through search results. This what we call "the Quality of the link"
Keep up with your link building journey.
-
The way that I understand it is that the click helps the link to be found faster than if it had not been clicked. It might have equity and pass link juice prior, but before Google finds it, it might not be counted as a link to your site. Does that make sense? The link needs to be discovered before the link juice is actually counted. At least that is the way that I understand it.
I do know a few professionals who believe that if a link isn't clicked link juice is never passed. I don't know if that is necessarily true. It makes sense that a link could be discovered but not have any equity because it isn't being used. I wonder if someone has a better idea of whether or not that is true, or if it another secret Google keeps

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
-
What IP Address does Googlebot use to read your site when coming from an external backlink?
Hi All, I'm trying to find more information on what IP address Googlebot would use when arriving to crawl your site from an external backlink. I'm under the impression Googlebot uses international signals to determine the best IP address to use when crawling (US / non-US) and then carries on with that IP when it arrives to your website? E.g. - Googlebot finds www.example.co.uk. Due to the ccTLD, it decides to crawl the site with a UK IP address rather than a US one. As it crawls this UK site, it finds a subdirectory backlink to your website and continues to crawl your website with the aforementioned UK IP address. Is this a correct assumption, or does Googlebot look at altering the IP address as it enters a backlink / new domain? Also, are ccTLDs the main signals to determine the possibility of Google switching to an international IP address to crawl, rather than the standard US one? Am I right in saying that hreflang tags don't apply here at all, as their purpose is to be used in SERPS and helping Google to determine which page to serve to users based on their IP etc. If anyone has any insight this would be great.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MattBassos0 -
301 Redirect Showing Up as Thousands Of Backlinks?
Hi Everyone, I'm currently doing quite a large back link audit on my company's website and there's one thing that's bugging me. Our website used to be split into two domains for separate areas of the business but since we have merged them together into one domain and have 301 redirected the old domain the the main one. But now, both GWT and Majestic are telling me that I've got 12,000 backlinks from that domain? This domain didn't even have 12,000 pages when it was live and I only did specific 301 redirects (ie. for specific URL's and not an overall domain level 301 redirect) for about 50 of the URL's with all the rest being redirected to the homepage. Therefore I'm quite confused about why its showing up as so many backlinks - Old redirects I've done don't usually show as a backlink at all. UPDATE: I've got some more info on the specific back links. But now my question is - is having this many backlinks/redirects from a single domain going to be viewed negatively in Google's eyes? I'm currently doing a reconsideration request and would look to try and fix this issue if having so many backlinks from a single domain would be against Google's guidelines. Does anybody have any ideas? Probably somthing very obvious. Thanks! Sam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sandicliffe0 -
Distilled U or Market Motive? Need recommendations for self-paced, advanced SEO training courses.
I'd like to get some recommendations on self-paced SEO courses. They need to be online, and they need to be rather advanced. Moz has perks for both Distilled U and Market Motive. Has anyone gone through these? What are the differences in format, content, etc.?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | justin-brock0 -
Do I need to use rel="canonical" on pages with no external links?
I know having rel="canonical" for each page on my website is not a bad practice... but how necessary is it for pages that don't have any external links pointing to them? I have my own opinions on this, to be fair - but I'd love to get a consensus before I start trying to customize which URLs have/don't have it included. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Netrepid0 -
Redirect ruined domain to new domain without passing link juice
A new client has a domain which has been hammered by bad links, updates etc and it's basically on its arse because of previous SEO guys. They have various domains for their business (brand.com, brand.co.uk) and want to use a fresh domain and take it from there. Their current domain is brand.com (the ruined one). They're not bothered about the rankings for brand.com but they want to redirect brand.com to brand.co.uk so that previous clients can find them easily. Would a 302 redirect work for this? I don't want to set up a 301 redirect as I don't want any of the crappy links pointing across. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasonwdexter0 -
Do links to PDF's on my site pass "link juice"?
Hi, I have recently started a project on one of my sites, working with a branch of the U.S. government, where I will be hosting and publishing some of their PDF documents for free for people to use. The great SEO side of this is that they link to my site. The thing is, they are linking directly to the PDF files themselves, not the page with the link to the PDF files. So my question is, does that give me any SEO benefit? While the PDF is hosted on my site, there are no links in it that would allow a spider to start from the PDF and crawl the rest of my site. So do I get any benefit from these great links? If not, does anybody have any suggestions on how I could get credit for them. Keep in mind that editing the PDF's are not allowed by the government. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayvensoft0 -
Can Google read my backlink in Javascript??
Hi SeoMoz community! I have a software product, which our clients implement onto their websites. It is like a pop up box. I know that backlinks are very important for SEO ranking, and I really want to give our clients 2 options of product: 1. you can get the free/cheaper option if you use the code which has a keyworded backlink to our site on it 2. you can pay small fee if you don't want to use the version with a link to our site on it Now, the problem is that the product is written entirely in Javascript, and I don't think that Google crawls this, do they? Is there a way around this? Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | qdigi0 -
How long does a new domain need to get a specific level of trust?
We are a small start-up in germany in the Sports and health sector. We currently are building a network of people in that sector and give each person a seperate wordpress blog. The idea is to create a big network of experts. My question is: How long is the period for google to trust a completely new URL? We set up each project and create content on the page. Each week the owner of the site puts up an expert article that contain keywords. And we set certain links from other blogs, etc. Also, do you think it is more important for a site to get say, 20 backlinks from anywhere. Or 5 backlinks from very trusted blogs, etc.?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wellbo0