How much effect does number of outbound links have on link juice?

[seanmccauley]

I am interested in your thoughts on the effect of number of outbound links (obls) on link juice passed? ie If a page linking to you has a high number of obls, how do you compute the effect of these obls and relative negative effect on linkjuice.

In the event that there are three sites on which you have been offered the opportunity of a link

Site A  PA 30 DA50      Obls on page 10

Site B  PA 40 DA50      Obls on page 15

Site C  PA 50 DA50      Obls on page 20

How would you appraise each of these prospective page links (ignoring anchor text, relevancy, etc which will be constant)

Is there a rule of thumb on how to compare the linkjuice passed from a site relative to its PA and the number of obls? Is it as simple as page with 10 obls passes 10x juice of page with 100 obls?

[PeterM22]

In my experience links on highly trusted sites are more valuable than links on low quality sites. I wouldn't stress too much about the number of outbound links on a page. An authoritative and editorial link on harvard.edu would be more valuable with 100 other OBL than a link on a lower trust site/page with only 10 obl. Of course this is only my opinion, many people disagree with me.

[DanSpeicher]

I understand what you're saying. It can be a great deal of work getting a link from someone and you want to find an exact way of rating one over the other. But I think you have to factor in all of the other context factors.

I know from Rand and others' comments that a low PA/High DA link is favorable compared to a High PA/Low DA link.  And I believe the PA score is affected by the number of outgoing links (Not 100% sure). This would mean that DA is a larger factor than the number of outgoing links.

[seanmccauley]

I am interested in how the number of outbound links from a page linking to me might affect how much link juice is passed to me? As regards variables youre quite right I just wanted to keep that out of the calculation.

As regards 'opportunity' perhaps its more appropriate to see this Q as to help decide which site you should put your efforts into getting a link from. If a great site with PA/DA of 70/80 has 50 obls on the page youre likely to gain a link would you be better going after a  link on a site of PA/DA of 35/40 with only 10 obls on the page?

[DanSpeicher]

I believe you are talking about inbound links. Links to you.

"In the event that there are three sites on which you have been offered the opportunity of a link"

To answer your question: I don't believe so. It's not as simple as counting the number of links on a page. You also have to factor in link placement. Top of the page vs. bottom of the page. And while you want to hold the other factors constant, anchor text, relevancy, etc., they will never be constant. There are always variables involved.