Are Outgoing Links Valuable In Search Engine Rankings

I'd be interested in hearing your opinions on the value of outgoing links in terms of SEO.

If a page on my site has one or two links to external sites, and if those sites are of high quality and have content that is relevant to my own page, will the search engines form a better opinion of my own page's content? Will they tend to improve my page's ranking?

Note that I'm not talking about a separate links page, where you might host links that you've traded with other sites. I'm thinking more of links that form a natural part of the subject of the page, and that are intended to help the reader get more information.

 

yes they help optimize the site fthe keywords in the link are from the taget keywords

 

Giving the links to the quality site help to popular the links.People come to know about their services and products and read your content.If they like your site, then they can give give you the link back of their sites to your sites and improves ranking.

 

Well, if you think in SEO point of view then you are sharing link juice with other websites which may not be good for PR but if you link to informative websites which are related to page content then it's helpful for your website visitors and they will certainly bookmark your website and hence indirectly traffic to your website will increase.

 

If you are talking about the Out Bound then this is not helpful for SERP.

 

NO, It doesn't help in SERPs.

 

Right, but if you outlink to other relevant good content websites then it's termed as good will gesture and ppl will refer your website making it popular. We should aways build websites for general public not just for Google/SE's

 

It never help you in ranking.

 

hm... Are you real experts and tested that when giving answers like "does not help" ?

I mean, do you really think that it is good to make a website of 50 pages about a topic without any single outbound link ? Internet is there to help people share info. If you have website without OBL it is like you are in your own world, not part of internet - and google knows that!

So yes, add a couple of outgoing links to useful resources and relevant websites. Yes, that spreads PR juice but same time giving you another advantage!

 

Yes, they help you gain better rankings.

 

Theoretically linking out will pass some of your link juice off of your site to another site so the initial answer appears to be do not do it, but I believe Google is tracking which sites do and do not link out to quality sites. If your site does not link out to quality sites then Google may note this and it could affect your rankings. No one has any idea how much of an affect this has, but Google is moving towards defining the authority of a website, and if you look at most large authority websites (cnn, microsoft, ny times, etc.) they all link out to quality sites. So since it is natural for authority sites across the web to link to other quality sites, then I believe sites should try to mimic the profile of other authority sites ranking well and link out to other quality sites.

This is from a Matt Cutts interview in 2009
Q: Okay, but doesn’t this encourage me to link out less? Should I turn off comments on my blog?
A: I wouldn’t recommend closing comments in an attempt to “hoard” your PageRank. 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.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

 

somehow, outbound links to relevant sites may help a site in terms of lifting its relevancy value in search engines eyes (may work for readers too)

 

In terms of relevancy, yes, outbound links to reputable sites "might" (Matt Cutts' favorite verb) help. As for your PageRank, no, they don't help. And I don't think they would help you improve rankings substantially. So, I wouldn't concentrate much on outbound links. Good question, though!

 

From what I have read "might" is probably the most accurate way to describe it. I've read that outbound links help, hurt, do nothing, and it depends on certain factors. The last one makes the most sense to me. If you have 200 outbound links then it probably hurts, if you have 5 or fewer to sites with relevant content and they are big "authority" sites then it probably helps. Anchor text may or may not help.

I am a rank amateur in the world of SEO.

 

This guy says to use outbound links, but according to certain rules. http://www.agora-business-center.com/0106links.html

This guy also believes in it, but his research into the matter and his conclusions show that it is, overall, detrimental, and he recommends keeping them off of your "money" pages. http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/seo-case-study-outbound-links/

So, what is a guy to do?

I was thinking about "hiding" up to 5 outbound links on my website beneath the layers to authority websites and the leading competitors. Right now I am taking no action on that. If I can't find out for sure then I might try it in the off season and see what happens.

 

What is your reasoning for hiding the outbound links? Do you just want the search engines to find them, but the users not see them?

My rule of thumb is that if it is natural to link to another quality site for more information then do so, you do not need to over do it, and you do not need to get caught up in making sure you have xx number of outbound links on your site. If you feel uncomfortable placing outbound links on certain pages then do not do it, you will not get penalized for that.

Just link out where natural. A few outbound links here and there will not hurt your rankings. The loss of link juice from 2 or even 3 outbound links per page will most likely be very minimal. In the grand scheme of search engine rankings, the number of outbound links (unless you placing tens and hundreds per page) you have is a very small factor.

 

My reasoning is that I read it was beneficial to link to high PR sites, but would have no place to do so "in context". I'd hide them so I wouldn't have some links just sitting there for no apparent reason but still get the link juice.

But now it seems like it may be a bad idea to have those links on my site at all.

 

Giving link to popular content will increase your Search Engine Ranking.
I checked it with my some posts. When I link to other posts under same niche, my search engine rank for that post increased !

 

I would not worry about having those links on your site, if they are to quality sites and are useful for your users then I would add them. I would not add hidden ones though just to have outbound links on your site. Think about it from a users perspective, add them where they would be useful for your users, but you do not need to over do it.

Some people get too caught up in making sure no link juice leaks off their site. I think this sends the wrong signal to Google though. Google wants a site designed for users and that is useful for them, and not a site designed to hoard link juice. This does not mean you need to ignore SEO basics and strategies, but you need to focus on creating a useful site for users first rather than the search engines.

The downside to linking out is overblown in my estimation, as long as you are not linking out to 10 - 20 external sites per page.

 

Giving the links to the quality site help to popular the links.People come to know about their services and products and read your content.If they like your site, then they can give give you the link back of their sites to your sites and improves ranking.