Do Outbound Links Matter for SEO?

[once janister]

How much do outbound links actually matter in terms of SEO? We obviously all know that inbound links are the name of the game but I've heard some proponents for having strong outbound links to reputable sites. Is there any truth to that?

[~CReed]

Hard to consider that outbound links are not a signal of quality and given some weight; think about what happens when you link to bad neighborhoods.

[dWhite]

Originally Posted by ~CReed

Hard to consider that outbound links are not a signal of quality and given some weight; think about what happens when you link to bad neighborhoods.

"Bad neighborhood" is a rather vague statement, most search engines don't give a clear enough explanation on what they consider a bad neighborhood.

[Advertise]

That is a question that I have yet to see answered with good supporting evidence. I have heard more often than not, that inbound links far outweigh link exchanges for example. But, I do not see how an outbound link to a quality site may be detrimental to our own. Don't know, but perhaps that is one thing I too, would like to know.

[Elliott]

Compared to inbound links, outbound links have negligible effect in terms of rankings.

[jimtsap]

Originally Posted by dWhite

"Bad neighborhood" is a rather vague statement, most search engines don't give a clear enough explanation on what they consider a bad neighborhood.

I consider "bad neighborhood" by these five ...

1. Domain banned from Google’s index for web spam
2. Domain’s rankings penalized in Google for web spam
3. Link is determined to be “Paid” rather than editorially given
4. Domain contains links to a significant amount of web spam
5. Domain has not earned trusted links

[dWhite]

Originally Posted by Elliott

Compared to inbound links, outbound links have negligible effect in terms of rankings.

So to speak, but linking out to bad neighborhood websites can get your website penalized or removed from the index which affects your ranking. So it's true/false statement.

Originally Posted by jimtsap

I consider "bad neighborhood" by these five ...

1. Domain banned from Google’s index for web spam
2. Domain’s rankings penalized in Google for web spam
3. Link is determined to be “Paid” rather than editorially given
4. Domain contains links to a significant amount of web spam
5. Domain has not earned trusted links

Good list! I'll take those 5 and apply them currently to what a lot of people consider as bad neighborhood; casino, pharmacy/drug, pornographic, etc..

[Jim Gillum]

Read awhile back from Matt Cutts...
Outbound links to relevant sites that would help your visitor...
Not sure how they determine that....he did not explain....

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Originally Posted by Elliott

Compared to inbound links, outbound links have negligible effect in terms of rankings.

Got some proof from a respected source to back that up?

[HTMLBasicTutor]

What Others are Saying About Linking Out

Linking Out is Not Bad

Source: Are You Linking Out? You Should Be

[dmvictoria]

I'm inclined to think that outbound links with your keywords in the anchor text that go to relevant, high authority web sites provides a boost to the relevance of those keywords to your page. Of course the content of your page should be relevant to the keywords you anchored.

*sigh... I have no proof except for a few articles where I have seen it mentioned (here's one) and my own limited experience.

Here's what happened with me. I have a weather website you can see http://www.friendlyforecast.com that gets some of its content feed from Environment Canada. To use their feeds they require you to referance them, so I put a link on every page that says:

All weather information, data and some images is courtesy and copyright of Environment Canada.

I even nofollow'ed the link. When Google started indexing my site I was left, right and center getting traffic from people looking for Environment Canada's weather forecasts especially for the smaller towns where there is less competition.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure if it was because I had an anchored link with okay keywords, that are relevant to my site that was pointing to a highly authoritative site in my niche, or, maybe I just accidentally snagged some long tail key phrases. But, I still get quite a bit of traffic from this.

However, from now on and until I hear otherwise, you can believe that I will always be putting 1 or 2 outbound links in my articles and content to authoritative sites, using my keywords in the anchor text.

[anney]

outbound link is the Links from your website to another website or webpage. The visitor generally has to leave your website to follow an outbound link its help in increasing backlink

[theqwertiest]

limit your links, too many outbound liks can be frowned upon by search engines. Use your appropriate keywords as your anchor text, you can link to other sites that are similar to you.

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Originally Posted by theqwertiest

limit your links, too many outbound liks can be frowned upon by search engines.

Why did Google say this:

Creating outbound links on your site, or “linking out”, is our topic for Day 3 of Links Week. Linking out happens naturally, and for most webmasters, it’s not something you have to worry about. Nonetheless, in case you’re interested about an otherwise simple topic that’s fundamental to the web, here’s the good, the bad, and answers to more advanced questions asked by our fellow webmasters.

Linking out: Often it’s just applying common sense -Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by dWhite

"Bad neighborhood" is a rather vague statement, most search engines don't give a clear enough explanation on what they consider a bad neighborhood.

For an inexperienced webmaster or SEO, yes, it *is* vague; it used to be a matter of checking the toolbar PR for a grey bar! Today, it requires more experience and a list like Jim's. In addition to those excellent points, this thread might help anyone concerned about the quality of a site they might link to:

Top Ten Checklist For Link “Quality Rank.”

Now, I am not saying that it's a "bad neighborhood" if it doesn't meet all these criteria, but I am saying if a site meets most of these factors, you can be sure it's not a bad neighborhood.

Originally Posted by Elliott

Compared to inbound links, outbound links have negligible effect in terms of rankings.

Can you substantiate that? Because I have a client who was building links and the site was grazing on page 2 in Google. On initial consultation, I suggested two things: a series of links on the home page to some highly useful, relevant sites, and a 4 page guide that linked out to more relevant sites ... and I do NOT mean a list of "Title: Description" sites in a link farm format.

That site moved onto the first page as an *apparent* result. We did no other link building or on sites tweaks at the time, so it would *seem* that was the ticket.

I am not saying it will always work, but I won't agree that the effect is relatively negligible in my experience.

And as HTML has pointed out, Google has been pretty clear that they favor outbound links where relevant, of course.

[AmyH]

It's good to have outbound links on your site, google likes to see that. I usually have 3 high authority outbound links on my site.

[theqwertiest]

Outbound links can come naturally but having too many of it can cause your website to appear as a link farm or spam site which can hurt your site's SEO, unless your site provide additional information/content for your visitors instead of simply pointing them to promotional offers.

[Elliott]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Can you substantiate that? Because I have a client who was building links and the site was grazing on page 2 in Google. On initial consultation, I suggested two things: a series of links on the home page to some highly useful, relevant sites, and a 4 page guide that linked out to more relevant sites ... and I do NOT mean a list of "Title: Description" sites in a link farm format.

That site moved onto the first page as an *apparent* result. We did no other link building or on sites tweaks at the time, so it would *seem* that was the ticket.

I am not saying it will always work, but I won't agree that the effect is relatively negligible in my experience.

And as HTML has pointed out, Google has been pretty clear that they favor outbound links where relevant, of course.

Hi MJTaylor,

I'm not saying the use of external links from your pages won't have a positive effect - I'm just saying the importance of external outgoing links vs inbound linking is so much lower.

You've probably seen SEOMoz's great list of ranking factors they conduct every two years where they ask a load of SEO experts their thoughts on ranking factors.
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search...anking-factors

The factor: "Use of External-Pointing Links on the Page" considered as "low importance" when compared to all the moderate to high importance given to IBL factors I think helps back up my statement.

There's also the argument that linking externally will drain some of your PR\Link Juice - affecting the PageRanking part of the algorithm... but then there's the counter argument that if you're linking to useful and relevant further resources then this will help the with the trust and relevance parts of the algorithm (and may also get you some return visitors & links), so in my opinion these effects generally cancel each other out producing an overall negligible effect.

My interpretation is that when you created the 4-page guide with links, it was more the unique content of the guide that would have helped rankings much more than the outgoing links.

Am I rambling?!

Elliott

[stone]

Originally Posted by HTMLBasicTutor

Source: Are You Linking Out? You Should Be

Thanks... Added the link.

I like links, they corroborate my information. I'm not afraid to post links that disagree with me... Sometimes we do need to admit that there are other opinions... shows that we are informed...

My pr 5 website slipped to a pr 0 when I spent 2 years doing nothing with it... That would seem to indicate that we can't do that... :b I still showed up on google searches, got visitors from google, just no green on the page bar...

I appreciate all the sites that encourage generosity, tell us to link to authoritative sources, I'd have done that anyway. Sites that don't link out seem unfriendly and less interested in providing information.

I've also shown up in search results for the site that I'd linked to...

[jimtsap]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

....
That site moved onto the first page as an *apparent* result. We did no other link building or on sites tweaks at the time, so it would *seem* that was the ticket.

I am not saying it will always work, but I won't agree that the effect is relatively negligible in my experience.
....

Well with my website I noticed something similar. I only do backlinks on my 10 most important pages. I have other 35 pages with no backlinking at all. From these 35 pages only 3 of them have outbound links to many famous and useful websites. These 3 pages climbed on the third page on google' results, with no backlink effort at all. It is obvious to me that linking out helped these pages.