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
-
Link Audit
Reviewing a list of links from webmaster console for a client and there are links to their website which render a page but there' s no mention of the clients website on that page. Why does this happen? Why is Google thinking that there is a link to the clients website yet on the page there is no mention of that clients website. There's no comments etc. I don't understand this and if anyone can shed a light??
Link Building | | AL123al0 -
About Link Earning?
I own an e-commerce store and I am get started with my SEO strategy. I know content is extremely important when it comes to link building, however for an e-commerce store what can I do as far as content. So far my only idea is blog posts. It's a furniture store so videos are really hard to do. The blog posts relate to home decor and interior design. My question is if people are going to be linking to my blog, will this help my website rank for product terms? The blog is part of the website, websitename.com/blog.
Link Building | | The_Kiwi_Man0 -
Google Penalty due to external links
On Sep 3, we got a Manual Action by Google: unnatural links to your site Immediately we arranged to have all those links the rel="nofollow" atttributes, these were links set by our customers since we are hosting providers. We sent a reconsideration request to Google on Sep 8 and this is their answer:
Link Building | | netbuilder
We’ve reviewed the reconsideration requestfor xxxx and modified its status, but we still believe that content on your site or links to your site are outside our quality guidelines. No more info provided. - We double checked everything but could not find anything else that could harm us so we asked Google (in a new reconsideration request sent on Sep 11 to provide us some samples. On Sep 24 Google answers with a sample of 3 sites which contains links to us. After verification, all the external links to us have the rel="nofollow" attribute !! Today the manual action is not anymore a side-wide one but a partial one and applies to unnatural links--impact links. So it seems that we need to physically have those links removed? As well I checked https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604772?ctx=MAC and he does not refer at all about setting the rel="nofollow" attribute, Looks like Google wants the full monopoly on text links.0 -
Any benefits to having Wikipedia links now they are 'no-followed' (apart from traffic and natural link prof.)
I see that Wikipedia outbound links are all no-followed, is there any benefit (aside from the traffic) for having links here now ? For example is their co-citation and co-occurance benefits. I know there is without the links since from seeing previous Moz content about this saying Google getting good at connecting brand/s and topic mentions on a page (without any links) so appreciate Wikipedia is still good for that sort of thing. And a no-followed link is obviously good for the potential traffic. But is there any additional SEO benefit to having a no followed link on a wikipedia entry/stub too ? (aside from its contribution to your no-followed links which in turn contribute to a natural looking link profile) Cheers Dan
Link Building | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Google Link Disavow and sites with extremely heavy but poor link metrics
Need help/opinions from the SEO's out there. I am working with a site that in the past hired an SEO company out of India. Over the course of their time together, this company submitted the clients url to tens of thousands of link exchanges and directories. Around the time of Penguin, the owners told me their inquiries dried up. Literally that same week they had a new website launched (designed by a local competitor) that really butchered the site. They were convinced the reduction in traffic/inquiries was due to the new site but I am convinced otherwise (suspect Penguin). Not only does the site need to be re-structured but their link portfolio needs to be diversified. Now on the plus side, the company caters and sponsors a number of events that earns them organic, relevant links. These are overshadowed by the tons of poor, irrelevant ones though. I read a few posts recently on the Google Link Disavow tool and to proceed slowly due to the unknown nature surrounding it. I have a good idea of what links are problematic and which ones are well served. However, the number of problematic links in my estimation is quite high (thousands). I am very hesitant to dive into Google Disavow and submit such a large number of requests. What are your thoughts? How would you proceed?
Link Building | | mattylac1 -
Finding links online that already exist as link juice based on search results
I'm curious about this, I can't find anything on the net that talks about it. I wrote an article about it on squidoo and have had no responses so I am thinking this is very rare subject. The question is I have done some backlink research with my competitors with linkdetective.com and found many links (even follow ones) related to sites that provide search results. Here are a link about what I am talking about as an example, I have found many more besides this one. http://search.lphant.com/es/webResults.html?q=free%20scrabble%20dictionary&hl=en&page=1&src=hmp_es&ref=1 My site appears in those results. When looking at the source there is no "nofollow". I found this page because linkdetective.com had this link listed pointing to my competitor. Are these valid backlinks? What I have been doing is adding these links to http://www.google.com/addurl so that Google knows about them. Is there something I am missing or are these valid?
Link Building | | cbielich0 -
Reciprocal Links Or One Way Links?
After reading a recent blog post on guest blogging and ways to build relationships for link building purposes, I began to wonder about something. It is my understanding that one way backlinks are superior to reciprocal linkage, but reciprocal is better than no link at all. So is it still worthwhile to do reciprocal guest blogging, and will the value of the links be worth it when completed? Or should we just be of the opinion that: One Way Link > Reciprocal > No link
Link Building | | dignan990 -
Link Acquisition - PA vs PR
I am wondering if someone can please advise on link acquisition. I have the opportunity to acquire a few good backlinks that will bring both traffic and some potential link juice. All things aside, if we are strictly comparing Page Authority with Google PageRank which will provide the most benefit to my SERP ranking? 1. Google PageRank 4 and Page Authority of 25 or 2. Google PageRank 2 and Page Authority of 35 We are strictly talking about SERPs!
Link Building | | initialeffort1
