Outgoing links...

Effect on PR

[crobb305]

Hi everyone. Happy New Year.

The main page of my site has Page Rank of 5. On that page, there are about 11 outgoing links to other sites (all of which also have PR 5 or 6). What effect would placing these outgoing links on one of my internal (PR4) pages have on the page rank of my main page? I have been told that some outgoing links help page rank. Then, I have also been told that you lose page rank to the sites you link to. This is an obvious contradiction.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!
C

[warmasol]

An outgoing links only spends spend pangerank to the page that it link to. Your sites loose pr, because the pr vour index page spen to other pages have to divide by the outgoing links. So your subpages get les pr from yor indexpage, if there are outgoing links on it.

[annej]

I don't think you gain or lose when you set outbound links.
It's easy to get paranoid with all the theories you see here but if you have an honest site there shouldn't be any problem with outgoing links.

Links to relevant pages are best and they also make your site more useful to visitors.

Anne

[jimbeetle]

Moving the outgoing links off your main page will not affect the PR of that page.

BUT, if any of your targeted keywords are in the anchor text of those links then this might affect your listing in the SERPs.

And if you move the external links off the main page any internal pages linked from the main page will get a slighlty larger share of the main page's PR5.

Linking to the external pages from an internal PR4 page will give them a share of that PR4 and not the main pages PR5.

If you're well-listed in the SERPs right now I think the thing I would consider most is how moving the links would affect the on-page factors such as anchor text, keyword density, etc.

Jim

[warmasol]

Ok, i agree you, Anne. Outbound links are important for the web and for your site. But too much outbound links can reduce your internal pageranks. The problem is always the same: To create useful sites for visitors that will be found in the se by visitors.
A possibility to minimize the problem of outbound links, create a special page for outbound links and put the outbound links from index page to this page. In most cases the index page have the highest pr. Put one link on the index page to the "outbound links page".

[jimbeetle]

>>Put one link on the index page to the "outbound links page".

Yes, if you want to be sure to spread as much of the PR from your main page to your internal pages. But your first question was:

"What effect would placing these outgoing links on one of my internal (PR4) pages have on the page rank of my main page?"

None. The PR of the main page stays the same.

"I have been told that some outgoing links help page rank."

Outgoing links do not affect PR but might (should) affect other on-page factors (keyword density, code/text ratio, etc.)

"I have also been told that you lose page rank to the sites you link to."

No, you do not lose page rank. The linked to page inherits a certain amount of your PR but your's stays the same.

It makes sense to do what you want to here, even just for the fact of uncluttering your home page, but do be sure that it is not going to effect the SERPs.

Jim