Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
we are working on a authority page that is ranked really well for its segment. It has only a couple of external links pointing away to other pages. However these linked pages aren't quality sites themselves. Does anyone know if it's good optimization-wise to have some external links on your page or is it better to have no links at all to other pages (especially if they are only PR 3 for example)?
Other long-time seo's are telling me that it is ok to do this, but ONLY if the sites you're linking to are completely on-topic, and flow with your on page content.
Despite this, we'll still never be 100% certain.
Lets look at it this way. Lets say you have a high-value site, not just in rankings terms, but trust value, PR, the whole shabang (spell check that!). What if you happen to come across another site that has some extremely valuable information, and other user-friendly tools for your said article, page, or whatever. Would you NOT want to link to them even just because of TBPR? Would it be fair to steal their content? How else are these new, low-key sites ever suppose to get anywhere that way?
I believe this is where the no-follow should come into play, and it would be nice to know if google can confirm this or not.....
Recently my site has dropped in the serps, and while we know that incoming links will never hurt you (only devalued.. and is still in discussion via another thread), I decided to take a look at who I was linking OUT to. Turns out, there were a few sites that had links going to link-partner type web services, seo sites, etc. These sites are way off base from my niche, and even tho the links were very few in comparison to the whole, I decided to no-follow the link on my site. Some sites were deleted all together.
One person got in touch with me saying they couldn't find their link anymore, and I stated why. They kindly agreed to remove the said links, and I put him back in business.
I do have this concern over the whole 'linking to new or small time sites' tho. I've got several links going out to relatively new and not promoted sites, and the whole set-up is bleached-white-hat. These guys been in business for 10 years or more, but just recently got a website. Seems quite illogical NOT linking to them just because of the 'date of registration' on the domain.
In this case, I can only assume that G is smart enough (god help us) that I'm linking out to honest sites that have useful content, and that they are 'SERP' worthy. No follow's have been applied to sites that are linking out to maybe one or two questionable/off-topic sites, while NO no-follow has been applied to sites that keeping their linking strictly on-topic.
Question remains tho - How will no-follows affect MY rankings? Technically, when the smoke clears, I'm STILL linking to these fella's, whether I'm giving them credit or not.
Let's say the linked out page is on-topic. Is it better to link to on topic pages or might Google like it best if a page doesn't have any links going away from it at all but only links pointing to it?
we are working on a authority page that is ranked really well for its segment. It has only a couple of external links pointing away to other pages. However these linked pages aren't quality sites themselves. Does anyone know if it's good optimization-wise to have some external links on your page or is it better to have no links at all to other pages (especially if they are only PR 3 for example)?
My first question is "How are you defining quality?" Is it by "they are only PR 3," or is it that the sites are actually low quality, maybe not relevant, or some other factor?
If the former, basing a quality judgment solely on PR is misguided, as PR does not measure quality. All thing considered, if the sites are relevant, have complementary material, and can be of use to your site's visitors, then by all means keep the links and ignore PR.
