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
-
Should I disavow these links?
Hi all, I have a ski website that I am currently performing a toxic backlink audit on. I have noted that a lot of the links being flagged as toxic/spammy by the tool I am using seem to be the same/similar sites with different URLs. The sites are vaguely related to skiing (relating to helicopter travel options for travelling to ski resorts) but it is concerning me that there are so many of them and they are being flagged as so toxic.
Link Building | | SolveWebMedia
Do you think it is worth disavowing these? Or contacting the owner to ask them to remove the link? I have included an example of some of the links below. https://www.cannes-helicopters.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://nice-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5 Slightly different site but same favicon icon:
https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://www.whitetracks-holidays.com/Helicopter_Transfers_Villars_Switzerland.htm Thanks in advance for any advice / help!0 -
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 -
More than one link on an external website
Just wanted to clarify my understanding of this... I'm of the understanding that if an external site has more than one link going to your site, then it is only the one link that passes value. If this is the case.... Which is the link that passes value (i.e the first link established or the link that, all factors being considered, is the most valuable for passing authority?) If a second link established on an external website comes from and goes to a different webpage than the first (and is done for the purposes of targeting and boosting a different keyword category/theme), is this then a beneficial practice? If multiple links on an external website all serve to generate solid referral traffic, will this boost rankings, and thereby be a sound practice? Thanks in advance for your help in clarifying this for me!
Link Building | | Gavo0 -
Are links with space considered to be the same as links with %20?
I wonder if Google would consider those three links to be the same? http://www.example.com/test page.html http://www.example.com/test page.html http://www.example.com/test+page.html
Link Building | | lucek0 -
Is there a tool to keep track of internal links?
I am looking for a tool that will help me keep track of internal links. We are working on a website that has roughly 500 pages of unique content. We are at a point where we plan to go through all of those pages and look for natural, internal link building opportunities (as well as pages that may have too many "over optimized" links). It would be really helpful to know the following for each page: 1. URL (we can extract this)
Link Building | | BlueTraffic
2. Meta Title (we can extract this)
3. Target Keywords (we can manually enter these) 4. Internal Links To Other Pages - A field (or fields) where we could manually enter the URL of each page that this page links to (including the anchor text used) Once all of this data is entered, it would be great if this tool could also count how many incoming links each page has (from other pages on the site) or somehow show which pages link to it. This would help to identify pages that have zero internal links. Do you know if a tool like this already exists, or even a spreadsheet with some functionality like this already built in? Thanks,
JC0 -
Changing links
Hi guys i wanted you views on changing the anchor text of links. I have quality links coming in but with year terms such as 2012 in there, if i want to change them all to 2013 for example would it be badly seen by Google? I cant say i feel comfortable about doing it but they are my links and are related to our products. Any advice much appreciated.
Link Building | | pauledwards0 -
Do links within imbeddable widgets carry link juice?
I'm dipping my toes into infographic design. On of my desired outcomes is to gain links by having other sites embed my graphic. I'm considering using Tableau's interactive data visualization software to do so; thus creating a widget, embedding it on my blog, and including the embed code for others to post. Is it possible to include a juice passing link in such an infographic? I know its possible to include links inside the tableau graphic but not sure if they have straight SEO value. If these links are not juice passing would it be better to go with a simple image link that passes value?
Link Building | | JesseCWalker1 -
Does linking to a subdomain give link juice to the main domain?
I have a few domains that I'm going to use for link building, will the link juice from the sub domains transfer to the main domain?
Link Building | | Vsky0