Do Outbound Links help my PR ?

Do Outbound Links help my Page Rank.

[Ruudi33]

hi all,
I'm optimizing my Website seeking Google PR, but I heard too much about Outbound Links, some say it's useful & the the rest say it's not.

so this is my ques. Do Outbound Links help my PR? or Do Outbound Links Matter for SEO generally ?

thanx anyway.

Ruudi33

[buckworks]

Outbound links will not increase your Page Rank, but if they make your site more interesting or useful they may create indirect benefits for your PR over time.

The immediate SEO value of well-chosen outbound links would be as "signals of relevance".

I like to find "undiscovered gems" to link to rather than linking to someone who is already strong for the searches I'm targeting. I'd prefer to give a link to a guy below me than one above me ... as long as the relevance is clear.

[Marley]

Hi Buckworks, do you think in the future Google will look at this or have done in the past? To use as a new benchmark for better SEO positions or a PR point?

[buckworks]

I can't prove this, of course, but I'm convinced that signals of relevance are becoming more and more important to all the search engines, and have been for a while.

PR still matters, and more is better, but in my experience if you keep your focus on relevance when you're developing your web presence, PR tends to look after itself.

However, the reverse isn't so true. Relevance won't look after itself if the webmaster only thinks about chasing PR. Too much of a PR obsession can lead to weak or confused signals of relevance.

Gaining PR will do you the most good if it's coupled with strong, clear signals of relevance.

[Marley]

Relevance to your theme is what i try to do, PR is obsessive to many online operations. With relevance comes PR, thanks for the clarification. I wish people selling sites concentrated on this instead of pricing Urls on PR status.

[nealrodriguez]

the real value of linking out to other sources is that you are citing statements that you are covering with 3rd party sources. visitors will respect your content if you state something and also cite the study or 3rd party argument that proved your statement. it always best to cite both sides of the story to get an objective point of view. web searchers will typically find the sites they originally found on the search engines by using the same method:

query: keyword then click on the purple link.

some argue that increased click through may also be taken into account when determining whether a site should rank for a keyword. citing expert sources may increase the amount of people returning to your site when viewed for all searches.

[Marley]

nealrodriguez can i ask you a question. Referring to your last paragraph are you saying that the more unique visits to your website the better that landing page will rank? or a specific keyword on a page so that page in itself ranks?

I have a few outbound links hidden in info sections, problem i have it's all e-commerce based so from what i have learnt is keep the end user on site and reduce the bounce rate. Plus, i struggle to find relavant links which are not the compo.

[nealrodriguez]

okay;

i should have set this to email notifications of replies;

first and foremost:

document scoring based on query analysis [appft1.uspto.gov]

A system may determine an extent to which a document is selected when the document is included in a set of search results, generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the extent to which the document is selected when the document is included in a set of search results; and rank the document with regard to at least one other document based, at least in part, on the score.

google filed this patent on April 19, 2007; now i have seen sites positioned on page one drop in positioning after seeing their traffic drop for a month or so. typically the amount of links pointing to other sites doesn't increase; nor do the links pointing to the site with a loss in traffic decrease.

so, speaking from both a search-engine friendly and usability standpoint, you definitely want to create a site with a title and Meta description that can increase your click through rate when populating the serp snippet, and content that turns a new visitor into a returning prospect.

[JS_Harris]

Outgoing links have a benefit if they are relevant. Link to the source of your articles.

If you read an article from another site and decide to write about the same thing a link to that source would be a good idea but also a link to the official source (if one exists) is a good idea when you're writing about a product, company or event etc. Adding two links when it's helpful has a benefit and don't worry about "leaking PR".

Truth be told every website should "leak PR" to the right places. I'd even suggest webmasters go back and revisit all the links they placed "nofollow" on and consider expiring some of them if the linked site is worthy.

edit: so many typo's for a Saturday morn'.

[edited by: JS_Harris at 9:58 pm (utc) on May 2, 2009]

[g1smd]

You need your site to be in the 'core' of the web. That is, it needs to link to and be linked from other pages that are in the core of the web. If you don't link out, your site sits on a leaf, not in a core node. Link to sites that your visitors will find useful.

[Marley]

nealrodriguez thanks for the advice, very useful. Cheers from a town without Mr Piggy flu (so far)

Thanks to all for the taking the time to answer.

[edited by: Marley at 11:15 am (utc) on May 3, 2009]

[nealrodriguez]

Cheers from a town without Mr Piggy flu (so far)

more power to you; home depot just gave me a store credit for a plant i bought there which succumbed to the swine.