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I thought external links only affected the amount of PR which can be passed on from that page to another page. So, the page itself wouldn't suffer a reduction, only pages which might receive a link from it.
Or are they one and the same thing? I'm slightly confused now.
The only thing I would say about linking out is that you are passing on the relevance, etc etc to another page and if it is in the same industry then it is possible that you linking to them may increase their rankigns and they outrank you. This does not mean you have been penalised its just they got a lil better.
If you are linking out of your site you need to make sure you do it in a strategic way so as to not sent your valuable relevance etc all over the place with could possibly be detrimental to your site.
fom2001uk your confusion is well founded -- as many refer to "PageRank drain" which infers lose but it's not really a lose.
PageRank passed to other pages is divided by the number of links and an equal amount of PageRank is transferred through each link to a other page (whether internal or external).
So if you had a main page with 4 links to other pages on your site -- 25% of the total PageRank of the mainpage would go through each link... the mainpage does not lose anything in this transfer though.
In the same example if we add an external link to the mainpage the division of PageRank is now 20% so each internal page receives less.
Therefore the more external links you have the less internal PageRank is available for other internal pages to pass on to other internal pages.
This isn't a bad thing though > and you should not be guided by the "hoarding of PageRank" so to allow all internal pages get more. PageRank is but one out of 100 variables to determining ranked results therefore it is far less important by itself. In other words... the more you give away "generally" the more you get in return, and this helps far more than hoarding.
[edited by: fathom at 9:47 am (utc) on May 9, 2003]
I have no love for the PR value of any site. Ill be the judge of the content and if it is good or not. People should really actualy understand what PR means before they get all excited because in reality its really a pointless little thing.
A very well known site offers text links for $1000.00 per month. PR8
Much intrigued I enquired, and could not get a reduction ...-; even though I offered 3 months advance payment.
The snotty reply was, etc etc, we sell ad space not PR even though it obvious what they are doing. links from the site have no relevance, from their site: viagra etc.....
Anyhow I checked the people using the service, most have a PR4/5...but I don't know if the link PR has kicked in yet.
I will know next "real update"
They like to call them "Featured sites" lol
I have no problem with that, but spare me the bull****
I recently had an argument with some so-called expert waffling on about how every additional external link added to a page, decreases the PR of that page. His implication was that it was a very bad idea to have too many external links on a page.
I disagreed on the basis of what I've read about pagerank, and also numerous sites I've seen where the resources page (many with over 100 external links) has as good a PR as the homepage.
Cheers :-)
This is better than having all external links reserved for one or a few pages.
Also.. by proxy -- on good "content" pages a web site owner is unlikely to place a link to a low quality/garbage site, or a inappropriate link to a "non-theme site" so quality control is also improved.
Correct. However, external links do drain away PR that page can transfer to other pages on your site. Unless you have a one page website, external links are a bad thing from a Google ranking perspective. However, if you refuse to link to other sites, odds are few other sites will link to you. This would be a bad thing from a Google ranking perspective, unless perhaps you happen to be blessed with a few PR8 links to your home page by people who think you are a really swell guy. Or, that you bought for big bucks.
I'm thinking the one page I don't want to suffer is the homepage, so can I avoid linking to it from the page with all these externals? I realise you have to link to the homepage from every page (for usability, etc), but what if I don't link directly to the homepage?
Could I have an intermediate page which is then redirected to the homepage? That way, the user thinks the homepage link goes to the homepage (because that's where they end up when they click on it), but the homepage doesn't suffer from being linked to from this internal page (with the PR drain), so the homepage remains unaffected.
What about that, then?
Unless you have a one page website, external links are a bad thing from a Google ranking perspective.
I disagree with you.
form2001uk :-
Could I have an intermediate page which is then redirected to the homepage? That way, the user thinks the homepage link goes to the homepage (because that's where they end up when they click on it), but the homepage doesn't suffer from being linked to from this internal page (with the PR drain), so the homepage remains unaffected.What about that, then?
I am at a loss of words! Let me try.
There is no way a home page Suffers because it is linked from internal pages. Let me try to explain what rfgdxm was saying in a more general term.
Suppose you are a Grandfather and have $100 with you. You distribute those among your 10 children. Each of your child gets $10. Now each of your 10 children has 10 children(your grand children). When your children distribute that money among your grandchildren , each of your grandchildren has $1 each.
Now your grandchildren are unselfish and decide to give back $0.25 to their father and grandfather. So you have $25 and your children have $2.5 each. Your grandchildren keep $0.50 .
Now imagine that instead of giving those money to your 10 children you give to 9 children and one stranger. The money you gave to stranger never returns. So you lose your money.
Now to link it to this topic :-
Grandfather -> Home Page
Children -> First level pages
Grand Children -> Second Level pages
Distribute -> Link
$$ -> Pagerank Value
give back -> Link back
Please note the above was only for Explanation purpose and is not a very good idea of Pagerank and it's effect on Search engine ranking.
You've just confirmed again what I originally thought, mil2k. It's the amount of PR which can be passed on which is reduced, not the page itself, or the recipient page's PR, which (as you reminded me) cannot suffer any harm.
Phew! We got there in the end. Thanks again :-)
I actually love putting external links on my sites because if the sites are related its amazeing the rankings you can get from a page e.g.
Funky Widgets USA : These widgets are designed and manufactured in the USA. All funky widgets are made to the highest quality standards. To find out more about the funky widgets this site offers please click here.
Blue Widgets UK : The blue widgets available at the X site are made to enable easy use and designed to be long lasting. To see the blue widgets available and to see other colour ranges of widgets like, red widgets, green widgets and turquoise widgets click here.
From this you can see the keyword repetition and the fact that it is in an anchor tag. Also the title words are in bold type giving higher prominence.
This page without inbound links and more outbound links in teh same format would probably get you a high ranking. All you need to do then is forward all SE inbound traffic to a main page or at least open up the main page for prospective clients to look at.
