Are Outbound Links Good or Bad for SEO?
by Antone Roundy | 11 Comments | Link Building, SEO
Conventional SEO wisdom states that you want to get as many inbound links as possible, and avoid outbound linking. The theory is that outbound links "bleed PageRank" which lowers your position in the search engines.
But is the theory accurate?
Not according to Google's Matt Cutts. A few days ago, he posted an article on his blog in which he stated that "in the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites."
In other words (as some SEO experts have been teaching for a while), outbound links can be good for your search engine ranking. (Just be sure you're linking to good sites.)
This has strong implications for the "link and content exchange" site I launched recently, the design of which depends heavily on the SEO value of outbound links, so I've posted in more detail on the subject there.
September 27th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Interesting, I've actually heard Google mention this before, I wonder just what kind of value the give you by linking out to relevant sites, will it literally improve your rankings?
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:27 pm
I have been reading that inbound links from .EDU sites carry a huge amount of weight when it comes to PR. The question I am wondering is whether there is a different weight put on a link from a page belonging directly to the EDU site versus a link from a blog of an EDU site?
November 22nd, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Will,
I'd not sure I understand the difference between the two pages you're talking about. If the webpage is hosted on a .edu domain, I'd expect the "edu bonus" to be the same whether it's part of a blog or not. Of course, I'm not a Google insider, so that's just my guess.
April 14th, 2011 at 6:05 am
So ok. You want to say if i have lots of outbound links to good sites is even better than not have any?
January 5th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
hi ,i just want to ask that is one outbond link in one post is good for seo ? or more then one can also improve my seo .
January 5th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Ana and Arun,
I can't give an authoritative answer to those questions, but logically, it seems to me that the more good resources you link to (without simply becoming a links page with no content), the more valuable your page becomes as a hub of information.
I wouldn't go overboard -- I'm sure there's a proper balance somewhere -- but I don't think there's any need to be stingy with outbound linking.
January 5th, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Thanks Antone ..
October 27th, 2012 at 12:37 am
Okay, one more External Links from me. Hope that it does not mess the “density†hehe.
External linking is important, because it puts you into a specific “neighborhood†of sites and associate your site with the subject those neighbors are about.
A large number of external sites to a lot of different sites in the same neighborhood make you to a hub, which isn’t too bad to be and an authority for that subject if you are being trusted. That means that you will probably start ranking higher and higher for the generic keywords that describe the subject, especially if the anchor text of inbound links will reinforce that notion.
January 3rd, 2013 at 1:24 pm
[...] who they link to, you need to consider the signals you are sending the search engines with your outbound links. You could follow the “link unto others as you would have them link unto you†policy. [...]
June 26th, 2013 at 8:32 pm
Ok this makes sense but i have a good example. I'm doing a game review site and some outbound points game link to download as well as at times to the developers game page. how do you think this would effect my page.
October 8th, 2013 at 11:46 am
If linking good sites can help google identify my industry or pass good site PR to me. I ll consider to add link to them. coz, they are well known, if we link them, it feels like just we are idiot to tell people where to go which they have already known even before the birthday of my website.