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.
Outgoing links - internal vs. external
-
I thought that the important factor in the value of a link was how many outing links a page has total. Some tools seems to tell me that the important data point is how many EXTERNAL links a page has. Which number should I be paying attention to when looking at pages I want to get linked from?
(Yes, I know there are many other factors that are important)
-
Hi Maxwell!
Great insight -- One question: Is there any benefit in aggregating/cleaning up outbound links on your site? Recently, I have discovered that Moz recommended 'cleaning up' outbound links on one of my sites in my campaigns. I wasn't aware there was a way to do this. Do you have any insight? Perhaps there is an FAQ on Moz even?
-
My understanding is that a link from a page with 100 links is worth 1/10th the value of a link from a page with only 10 links. Link "juice" is diluted. Some tools seem to indicate that the total number of links going to other domains is important. I didn't think that was important. My understanding is that it is the total number of links as more links will dilute the power of the link.
-
OK. Just to be clear, you are wondering which type of outgoing link makes a site more valuable as an external link source for your own site, right?
Again, I would look at metrics like authority before number of internal and external links, as those have a much greater influence on the amount of link juice you'll get. But as far as just internal versus external there isn't much difference. Too many of either one will look bad to search engines, and a high ratio of links to non-link text is bad as well.
-
I want to be very clear. I am talking about two types of outgoing links from a page. Links to other pages on the same website and links to pages on other websites.
-
Outgoing/Incoming and Internal/External are two different link classifications.
Outgoing = links from your site to another site
Incoming = links from another site to your siteInternal = links from one page on your site to another page on your site
External = links from another site to your siteSo incoming and external are basically the same, and are very important factor in search rankings. Don't get me wrong, outgoing links are good too (they connect your site to the site you link to, and the owner of that site may choose to reciprocate), but because you have to "earn" incoming/external links they are worth more to search engines.
I would look at the Authority and mozRank of a site you want a link from first, because those scores are an aggregate of links and other factors that give a more complete picture of how valuable a site is.
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
-
I'm stuck by internal linking.
What structure should a football website follow? Silo or Topic Cluster?
Link Building | | gogoanimetp
I need advice on my website. My website: https://tructiepbongda.site
I hope there are answers!
Thanks0 -
When conducting a link building strategy does it matter the country the link is from?
We are a UK business and if we have links mostly from US based blogs and websites does this penalise us. The links are from relevant websites and topics. Should we be focusing on .co.uk sites
Link Building | | Caffeine_Marketing1 -
Does an external link to an image file on my site help my SEO?
I found a few websites that are displaying images from my site. Curiously, they have also linked these images to the source image file on my website. I found these because Moz showed these sites in my list of backlinks. I assume that means it impacts my Domain Authority. But does this actually help me in search engines since it's not linking to a page on my site?
Link Building | | AlexLenhoff0 -
Is it okay to post my blog posts to both an internal blog on our domain and an external blog?
We have a blog internally at kay-grant.com/blog and also created an external blog at ActiveRain.com Is it okay to post the same blog posts to both sites or should I have different content for each blog?
Link Building | | geoff81510 -
Spammy links
Hi Guys, I have a case which seems to occur more often for our customers. The websites of our customers seem to receive tons of backlinks from websites all over the world (China, Russia, Ukrain, etc). It’s spam we never asked for, we didn’t buy any dodgy linkbuilding packages or anything. Do any of you guys have experience with this matter? We try to disavow the links but it takes too much time and we will never manage to disavow 100% of all links. Examples are www.keukensduitsland.nl and www.m2beveiliging.nl Hope anyone has experience and maybe even solutions for this matter. Thanks!
Link Building | | Happy-SEO1 -
The Benefit of Internal Backwards Links in Product Descriptions
We want to work out if it is beneficial to use links pointing back to categories (higher up in the structure) on our website product pages. For example, our Aria Dress by Jadore is found through the path: Home > Bridesmaid > Full Length Bridesmaids Dresses > Aria Dress In the product description for the Aria Dress, is it beneficial to include internal links pointing back to higher branches in the website structure .e.g. the Full Length Bridesmaids Dresses category page, the Bridesmaid category page, as well as linking back to the 'Jadore' page? Will doing this for every dress (linking back to category page), improve the SEO of these category pages? How many internal links is too many to include on any given product description? Is it more important to ensure a direct link to every single webpage so that they can be reached by Google, or to include links in both directions .i.e. from Home > Product Category > Product, as well as from Product > Product Category? Thank you.
Link Building | | CostumeD0 -
Linking to sites that link to porn or casinos, my site getting penalized?
I have some link exchanges with some sites to get web traffic but when i ran the bad neighborhood link checker, i found that one site links to some casinos and another site has one link to a porn site. Is this getting me penalized? should i remove the links to these sites? Thanks, Ron
Link Building | | Ron100 -
Iframes vs links
Obviously, websites can link to another web site using iframes, and Google and other search engines do seem to have some capability to index the content. What I want to know is what is the difference in value passed between a regular link and an iframe link. <iframe src="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink"><br /><br />will have the same page ranking effect on the target web site as this link: <br /><br /><a href="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink">link</a><br /><br />Alternative, would it work to include an invisible actual link right before the iframe, like this: <br /><br /><a style="display: none;" href="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink">link</a><br /><iframe src="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink"/></p> <p><span style="color: #5e5e5e;">The reason is that we are building a product recommendation engine, for a branded cosmetology school in order to get our concept salons to link back to use and I was curious if creating a version they can use as an iframe will give us link benefit.</span></p></iframe>
Link Building | | incept0