Does outbound links matters?

[gjedda63]

Should outbound and inbound links be balanced in a way? People speak only about ingoing links but rarely about outging links. Have anyone did some testing around this, maybe this could be a important part in the algos.
Having 10K inlinks and only 20 outgoing links sure looks odd to me as a link should be seen as a vote for your site. 10K vote for you but you nearly vote for none. That doesnt look natural.

[paulgl]

You have zero control over inbound links, so why would anything
about them count against you? In fact, google states this quite
nicely.

Outbound links don't count for much. This is one of the myths.
But I know, you will have many disagree. All I can say is look at
this forum. Some threads are quite long and indexed. How many
outbound links do you think there are here? And you cannot control
inbound links. All of these outbound links have nothing to do with
the SEO of this forum. They rank #1 or 2 for this forum niche.
I'd say there are hundreds of thousands of outbound links here.
And not nearly that many inbound.

The only way outbound links will hurt you is if you link to a site
banned by google, or violates their TOS.

But like I said, you will get people not reading this answer or thinking
other things.

High quality inbound links would count towards PR.

Paul

[ebiz101]

Its better to have as many inbound links from sites but keep the outbounds link to minimum for your site.

[Fraggler]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Outbound links don't count for much. This is one of the myths.
But I know, you will have many disagree. All I can say is look at
this forum. Some threads are quite long and indexed. How many
outbound links do you think there are here? And you cannot control
inbound links. All of these outbound links have nothing to do with
the SEO of this forum. They rank #1 or 2 for this forum niche.
I'd say there are hundreds of thousands of outbound links here.
And not nearly that many inbound.

Just because in your opinion they don't count for much it doesn't mean that it is a myth.

One of the older agorithms that Google used/uses in part (Hilltop) is based around Expert and Authority pages. Expert Pages link to Authority Pages. This creates a theme between the pages.

Matt Cutts has also hinted at the benefit of linking out to relevant sites.

Usually, top ranking sites contain many links to external sites.

It might not make a difference or the difference might be small but to say it is a myth when evidence appears to hint otherwise is a pretty extreme claim.

I have pointed out your Warrior Forum example in the past. The page that ranks for Internet Marketing Forum (which I get as #7) is a page for the old forum that contains 7 outbound links. This page does not link to those random pages you mention. It is cliche but Google ranks pages, not sites.

[hotftuna]

I have found some anecdotal evidence that linking to a page with your keyword phrase in the title of the page you are linking to, helps.

[jazbo]

No myth at all. Matt Cutts amongst other advocate the benefits of linking out as well as in to relevant sites. Doing so creates hub sites over time.

Hub sites , ie those that grow and freely link out to other reputable sites can create authority, which is part of trustrank (ie proximity to other trusted sites and your own authority as well).

So link out to relevant high PR/trust sites in your niche, wikipedia pages etc. It does help.

[dburk]

Hi gjedda63,

Your outbound links are just as important as inbound links. In some ways they are even more important because they are completely under your control.

Google uses the web that your page is contained within to determine keywords relevant to your page. They use both inbound and outbound links. While it may seem too simply, it is indeed true.

I too was skeptical of the Hub Sites claims until I noticed a number of my pages reaching top ranking without any backlink building on my part. I decided to do an experiment and built a serious of websites that linked out to many highly relevant webpages. I created just enough linbound links to get the sites indexed. I didn't do any other SEO promotional activity. I was amazed and pleased to see each of them reach a top 3 position in the SERP for the targeted search phrase. I was even more pleased when I saw how much I was earning in ad revenue.

Anyone who claims this to be a myth has certainly not tested the concept, for it has never failed me.

[Mike Anthony]

Outbound linking is well known to be a factor in SEO. Unfortunately people do not realize that PR is not the be all and end all of SERPs

[gjedda63]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi gjedda63,

Your outbound links are just as important as inbound links. In some ways they are even more important because they are completely under your control.

Google uses the web that your page is contained within to determine keywords relevant to your page. They use both inbound and outbound links. While it may seem too simply, it is indeed true.

I too was skeptical of the Hub Sites claims until I noticed a number of my pages reaching top ranking without any backlink building on my part. I decided to do an experiment and built a serious of websites that linked out to many highly relevant webpages. I created just enough linbound links to get the sites indexed. I didn't do any other SEO promotional activity. I was amazed and pleased to see each of them reach a top 3 position in the SERP for the targeted search phrase. I was even more pleased when I saw how much I was earning in ad revenue.

Anyone who claims this to be a myth has certainly not tested the concept, for it has never failed me.

I had a hunch that this was the case with a couple of my sites too. Did exactly the same as you and found them to my surprise way up in the rankings. Hmm.. time to test this more.
But to avoid reciprocal links, maybe it will be and idea to link out to sites not in direct competition with you but in the same niche. F.ex if I go for "dog baskets" , then I link out to the best sites in "dog training". Would that be a good way to go?

[makhussy]

Keep the outbounds link minimum and try to make powerful inbound links

[makhussy]

Keep the outbounds link minimum and try to make powerful inbound links