Adding links on home page and PR?

[BMach]

If I add external links on my index page will it effect the PR potency of the page assuming I don't have reciprocal links with these sites? Not many links maybe 5 or so. Adding links on the index page will only effect the PR of any page linked from the index page including internal pages right?

[Marcia]

It won't affect the index page itself, but you'll be passing less PR to the internal pages of your site because of the off-site links. That'll mean a bit less PR distributed to your own pages and among the site pages linked to each other as well as back to the index page.

[doc_z]

Obviously, adding a link to the index page will decrease the PR of internal pages. However, assuming that some/all of these internal pages link to your index page, also the PR of the index pages decreases since all backlinks (internal and external) are counted for PR calculation.

Of course, there are other effects (apart from PR) which influence the ranking of your page. Therefore, there might be a positive effect for your ranking even if PR is decreased. I have outgoing links on my site, but normally I don't put them on the index page.

[Teshka]

BMach, as an experiment, I added 6 links to related "authority" pages at the bottom of my index page. PR didn't drop, and the page went up a few spots in the Google SERPs within a week (may or may not be related, but it's worth trying--you can always remove the links later).

There's actually about 40 links off the index page, albeit most are internal, and the site has been at pr 6 for a while now. The article pages attached to those links are all pr 5.

[Marcia]

Teshka, did your new outbound links have keywords in the anchor text, and/or did the pages you linked to have prominent occurrences of the keywords your rankings increased for?

[BMach]

I tried linking to one major competitor using a keyword in the anchor text. I shot up one full page for this keyword! But now this same competitor took my place for another keyword...What do people think about linking to competitors of the same keyword but of non related content. My main keyword means two different things in two non related industries. The top placers for this keyword are all from the other industry. I guess I could test it out but would sure like to hear what people have to say first.

[newwebster]

I have about 6 links out from my index page with my important keywords as the anchor text to related sites that are on topic for my most important keywords. I am not sure if this is why at a page rank of 5 I beat several rank 7 sites. I do not think this is the only reason, but I believe that if you want to rank well in Google, one aspect you should concentrate on is the whole theme of your keywords. Write content and use outgoing links that describe different aspects of your topic.

[doc_z]

BMach, as an experiment, I added 6 links to related "authority" pages at the bottom of my index page. PR didn't drop ...

With a total of 40 links the decrease for internal pages is small, i.e. less than 0.1 in units of toolbar PR. Therefore, you are not seeing an effect. The decrease for your index page is even smaller.

[SyntheticUpper]

BMach, as an experiment, I added 6 links to related "authority" pages at the bottom of my index page. PR didn't drop ...

Added to that, if they're at the bottom of the page, they might not even be picked up. This sounds a little crazy, but its something I always bear in mind with links of any kind.