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during all these months here at Webmasterworld, it seemed an undisputed truth that having outbound links in Google to authoritive sites will increase your ranking.
Also, in terms of link-building, you obviously can't get much backlinks if you are not linking out.
Recently I read a book on advertising/pr in general, and the author also covered websites. He made a very strong point of NEVER EVER linking to other sites because that's the surest way of driving visitors away.
I emailed the auhtor, assuming he only has marginal knowledge of SEO, and expained what I learned over the years to be the reason for having outbound links.
He replied to me and it seems he has a fairly good understanding of SEO. And again he claimed to have NO outbound link is the best idea!
So... I'm puzzled. All YOU guys telling me to have outbound links is important. But now I get a very sound description why it is harmful.
What are your thoughts?
[edited by: martinibuster at 3:17 pm (utc) on Aug. 3, 2004]
[edit reason] No urls, thanks. See TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]
It's a little strange that an "authority" on SEO would so vehemently put down outbound links. I've never heard of such a thing - there are theories that outbound links reduce your pagerank due to pagerank filtering down, but nothing so drastic as you mention.
Outbound links to related websites show that your site provides good content and resources not only on your own site but to other websites as well.
Though your post puts me in a bit of a quandry and I've got a faint question mark hovering my head, it's not enough for me to pull my outbound links off.
I've noticed a couple of pages on my site in particular (with 0 inbound links,weak content but lots of "related" outbound links) which do very well for the targetted keywords (and these are keywords in a moderately competitive area). So just from experience, I wouldn't take that piece of advice.
I dispute this. I don't believe this will help rankings. Shouldn't hurt though.
This author's conclusion may be true for E-Commerce websites (arguably), but is riduculous to suggest for all websites. For informational websites, having no outbound links is kind of like having a scholarly book with no sources.
Look at their site structure, internal anchor text etc.
Possibly because the pages have high PR, and the search terms tend to appear on the page? I have a window open on a single word SERP where the PR6 ODP cat page about that isn't even in the top 10. Yet a Wikipedia page has managed to get to #11, ahead of the ODP cat at #18. I see too many exceptions to directories ranking well in Google to support the theory outbound links are what is important.
Let's suppose you go into your local hardware store looking for a certain plumbing fixture that they do not have. Which reply is likely to have you leaving that store feeling better about them.
"Check the plumbing supply house on Main Street. They are the only one's that would carry that part."
or
"Nope. Sorry, it is against store policy to refer you to other stores."
His advice *might* be reasonable when it comes to worrying about making a sale to the customer while they are in your store, but it does noting to help your reputation and your long term business outlook.
And I quite honestly don't think that it will help your single visitor sales very much either. Finding another store online is easier than finding one in the real world, and anyone that is shopping around is already going to see plenty of other sites. Those that are going to buy in whatever store they are in, will not bother to follow those links.
1) Outbound links can help you in your on page SEO.
2) Outbound links can be harmful in losing your traffic.
For example, it would be insane to have outbound links in your shopping cart. You might drive your visitors away.
One of the most compelling arguments for outbound links (at least the old guns over here preach) is to increase the site stickiness.
There are so many different aspects to consider, that I would not have a firm yes or no to outbound links. In each case I would analyse the end objective and then take a decision.
For what its worth, I have found statement 1 & 2 both to be true.
HTH :)
Gets hits every day as No.1 in G where the searcher is searching for US real estate by name and town, and in one case by the name of the building and the town.
Take your choice gentlemen.
So if your site gets 1000 more visitors a day because your outbound links helped improve your page's ranking in the SERPs, then you should evaluate if your revenue increases or decreases then make your decision.
As an extreme example, if you become number one in the SERPs because of outbound links, and you weren't on the map prior to implementing them, then your revenue will probably have increased because of them.
In short, there is no general rule. A PR/advertising person who has not seen your numbers cannot possibly know what is best for your site.
Will it help you in your ranking, in some cases it does help and sometimes it doesn't.
On-target, qualified links doesn't necessarily mean direct competitors.
In a perfect world, I would probably try to own the forum, the cheats site and the video games reviews site that i was linking to - which of course would have different whois info, different hosting, etc, but that's just me :)
In some of my own recent shopping experience, the fact that a certain widgets site pointed me to some great widget accessories sites helped to confirm my decision to buy a widget. I left the first widget site, even abandoned a shopping cart, but when I came back later I had my credit card ready.
First of all, if you choose your link partners carefully, you will ALWAYS receive more traffic from them than you send to them.
The inbound link using laser-targeted anchor text will help boost your search engine rankings which brings in even more traffic. And theming? You simply can't get a more "on-theme" link than one from a direct competitor.
The best part of all? The traffic you receive from a directly competing website is the most laser-targeted you will ever get. After all, they just left a site that offers exactly the same thing you offer so there is a darn good chance they're looking for precisely what you're offering. Talk about high conversion rates!
I've been exchanging links with my competitors for 3 years now, and virtually every month my page views, sales, and profits increase (taking into account seasonal traffic variations).
Ironically, the hard part of course is finding direct competitors that are willing to do an exchange with me because I'm running out of potential desirable linking partners in my market sectors.
And of course most webmasters refuse to link to me as a direct competitor anyway. But when I do find a high-quality candidate that accepts my offer it ALWAYS pays off handsomely.
Disclaimer:
This obviously applies to reciprocal linking only.
If it won't, don't bother. Even better, don't bother, and figure out what *would* help them.
I do .. its called adsense.
Thanks for all the replies. Trying to summarize them I come up with these items:
The "grassroots" statement: the web is all about links, and not putting links up is perverting the very idea of the web.
Even though I sympathize with this statement, I think in todays "business web" it's a bit romantic. The statement might be valid for many types of websites in the private, scientific, educational and charity sector. As the ultimate argument for business websites it makes not much sense to me. My understanding of the goal of a business website is: to be found easily (ideally without even asking a search engine at all because the web-address is so self evident) and to be convincing to potential customers in order to generate sales. If I can reach BOTH(!) without a single outbound link - so be it. If I need outbound links to reach this goal - just as well.
The "placing into context" statement: by using outbound links, you place your own page into a context of other pages, in order to make it easier for SE's to produce on-topic SERPS.
Makes sense to me, but makes me question my own practice of outbound links. For example I use outbound links in customer testimonials, to add credibility to these success stories. In the light of the statement above, this measn I have a lot of non-contextual outbound links, ranging from cable-tv providers to pharmaceutical companies, and from ship-builders to aerial survey companies.
This statement comes with a sub-statement:
The "be careful what you link to" statement: in a highly competitive industry, you obviously don't want to link to your direct competitor, since this will drive vsitors away. It is better to link to related or complimentary sites, especially if it is yourself who has control over these sites.
In a not-as-competitive area, or if you have some very unique selling points, it might be a smart idea however to link to your direct competition. But you need to be damn sure what you are doing.
Sounds like a good scenario for the typical runner-up: linking to the #1 shows guts, but also brings accross that obviosuly you think your service/products/offerings/prices are superior.
Unfortunately, this doesn't wor for me: I can't link to complimentary products since we cover all there is to sell in our industry. And even though our products are superior they are also the most expensive ones so I haven't had the guts to link to our competition because we live in a very cost-dominated period, and unfortunately people show a recent tendency to go to the second-best product if it costs less.
The "outbound links will hurt in any case" statement: not surprising to me it was not voiced very much in this thread.
I chuckled a bit when I read that in another case it was also the CEO who forbid to place outbound links. My experience also showed that when outbound links are concerned CEO's/presidents/owners seem to act rather emotional. I - too - faced a straightforward "No, I don't want outbound links" from my CEO and it took me quite some convincing work to do before he gave in.
Still, might they have a point? I tried to analyze my own surfing behaviour, but when it comes to actual buying, I still maintain a lot of trust to suppliers I know already. And I am a typical person who spends a lot of time evaluating demo-versions (in software), then decides for a product, and then shops for the cheapest reseller around (which includes ebay).
So.... my initial question "Do outbound links hurt?" doesn't seem to have an easy answer. The overall majority so far says it doesn't hurt - and most said it helps.
Anybody wants to tell a story where outbound links actually provided catatstrophic results?
[edited by: pmkpmk at 10:09 am (utc) on Aug. 4, 2004]
The inbound link using laser-targeted anchor text will help boost your search engine rankings which brings in even more traffic.
I have extreme difficulties in convincing my link-partners to use exactly the anchor text I provided.
When I send them something like:
Please note that <a href="http://www.company.com">the best widgets around are available from Company.com</a>They usually set it up like:
Other sites of interest:
<ul>
<li><a href="www.company.com">www.company.com</a>Any ideas?
or
"[your company name] widgets" etc.
We've had some good success with that ;-)
TIA
I pointed to a reference on the web, which examined in a very scientific way the Page-Rank algorithm of Google, and how it is affected by outbound links.
When in doubt I look at what WebmasterWorld has done, like this link [to google in this case] [google.com]. No outgoing links at all, all sent to a WebmasterWorld page that forwards the viewer to the site without actually linking to the site. All page rank flows into WebmasterWorld from thousands of links, none flows out. That's leaving aside the whole pagerank discussion.
This is very easy to do, and you can select which sites to link to directly and which indirectly. To me it really depends on what kind of site you have in terms of whether to link out or not, although for an ecommerce site linking to the manufactor website, for example, seems pretty useful, whereas linking to a competitor is obviously not a very good idea.
Actually I guess WW gets MORE visitors from word-of-mouth than from SERPS.
So I think pagerank and SERP-positioning is more or less irrevelant for WW.
My site however is not like WW, so I need good SERPS and in consequence good PR.
Actually I guess WW gets MORE visitors from word-of-mouth than from SERPS.So I think pagerank and SERP-positioning is more or less irrevelant for WW.
I'd question this statement, I would guess the overwhelming number of new WebmasterWorld users come from search engines, something I've seen alluded to many times here. The entire structure of this site is designed to pull in high SERPs, the admins know what they are doing.
its a very prominent site on the web
I never heard of WebmasterWorld before I found it in repeated searches, SERPS and finally noticing that the site I was coming into for my search was WebmasterWorld. When I've mentioned the site to slightly tech oriented friends they haven't heard of it unless they already use it.
I would suggest it's just as important here as it is to you, or to most of us, you bring new users into non destination sites [destinations like google, msn, yahoo being spread by advertizing and word of mouth] through search engines.
The "grassroots" statement: the web is all about links, and not putting links up is perverting the very idea of the web.Even though I sympathize with this statement, I think in todays "business web" it's a bit romantic. The statement might be valid for many types of websites in the private, scientific, educational and charity sector.
It's also valid for Web publishers with editorial or "content" sites. And yes, there are a few of us here at Webmaster World. :-)
BTW, I've noticed that some big-name business sites do use outbound links. I regularly get traffic from a major luggage manufacturer and an airline that have linked to my site without being asked to do so.
