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Page Rank and Outbound Links

by Why9999
18 replies
  • SEO
    • |
The more I read about page rank and outbound links, the more confused I get. According to one school of though, the more outbound links that you have to other sites, the more it drains your page rank. Yet another school of thought is that Google does not penalize good quality outbound links and, in fact, likes them. I read one story of a guy who filled his pages with link citations and it bumped up his page ranking in the SE's (supposedly).

I just posted this on another forum and people were all over the place on this one. Does anyone know the answer?

By the way, the reason I'm asking is that I have quite a few outbound links. They're mostly to cite authoritative sites like webmd, sciencedaily, etc.

So I am wondering where the truth lies? Is it good/bad for your page rank/search engine rankings to have a lot of outbound links to other sites?
#links #outbound #page #rank
  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi Why9999,

    First let me say that PageRank and ranking in the SERP are two entirely different things. Many folks get those two things confused. The way your question was asked left enough ambiguity to generate mixed responses, relating to these two very different items. Let me address each item separately and in turn.

    PageRank, which is named after Google co-founder Larry Page, is a relative score based on the number of direct and indirect incoming links to a URL, represented using a logarithmic scale of 0 to 10. No amount of outbound links has any effect whatsoever on your PageRank score.

    This PageRank score is used to weight the value of relevant outbound links from that page to it's destination page. This relative weighting value is divided equally among all the different outbound URLs. It's important to note that outbound links do not drain any PR from the page where they are placed. Instead those outbound links dilute the weighting value that influences the linked to page (not the linked from page). The page where the link is placed is not diminished but the weight and influence those links have on the landing page is diluted.

    So, when you link out to lots of other pages there is no negative affect to your page, you are simply dividing the benefit that is passed to those destination pages. The only thing that affects your page's PR are the inbound links to your page.

    Now on to how links affect your SERP ranking. Your pages are ranked in SERPs based primarily upon your page's relevancy score for the keyword term used for that search. Both inbound and outbound links to and from your page will influence your page's relevancy score. Your page''s PR score has virtually no direct influence on where your page will rank in the SERP.

    Backlinks are important for ranking, but not for how they influence your PR score, but instead for how they influence your page's relevancy score. Outbound links can be just as influential as inbound links on your relevancy score.

    Some folks pursue the practice of hoarding PageRank. Accumulating PR does not help your page rank for a particular keyword, but it does increase the influence your page's outbound links will have on other pages. By linking to fewer pages you can concentrate the power of those few outbound links you do place.

    There are many other considerations when creating your web of links, this explanation is meant to give you an idea of the basic concepts.
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    • Profile picture of the author Why9999
      Originally Posted by dburk View Post

      Hi Why9999,

      First let me say that PageRank and ranking in the SERP are two entirely different things. Many folks get those two things confused. The way your question was asked left enough ambiguity to generate mixed responses, relating to these two very different items. Let me address each item separately and in turn.

      PageRank, which is named after Google co-founder Larry Page, is a relative score based on the number of direct and indirect incoming links to a URL, represented using a logarithmic scale of 0 to 10. No amount of outbound links has any effect whatsoever on your PageRank score.

      This PageRank score is used to weight the value of relevant outbound links from that page to it's destination page. This relative weighting value is divided equally among all the different outbound URLs. It's important to note that outbound links do not drain any PR from the page where they are placed. Instead those outbound links dilute the weighting value that influences the linked to page (not the linked from page). The page where the link is placed is not diminished but the weight and influence those links have on the landing page is diluted.

      So, when you link out to lots of other pages there is no negative affect to your page, you are simply dividing the benefit that is passed to those destination pages. The only thing that affects your page's PR are the inbound links to your page.

      Now on to how links affect your SERP ranking. Your pages are ranked in SERPs based primarily upon your page's relevancy score for the keyword term used for that search. Both inbound and outbound links to and from your page will influence your page's relevancy score. Your page''s PR score has virtually no direct influence on where your page will rank in the SERP.

      Backlinks are important for ranking, but not for how they influence your PR score, but instead for how they influence your page's relevancy score. Outbound links can be just as influential as inbound links on your relevancy score.

      Some folks pursue the practice of hoarding PageRank. Accumulating PR does not help your page rank for a particular keyword, but it does increase the influence your page's outbound links will have on other pages. By linking to fewer pages you can concentrate the power of those few outbound links you do place.

      There are many other considerations when creating your web of links, this explanation is meant to give you an idea of the basic concepts.
      Okay, thx. Can I ask a couple of questions then?

      1. Why do people pursue page rank? I wanted to do it, because it is kind of a "badge of honor". I want to do, for example, some copyrighting and wanted to be able to say, "I've got a site with PR 3 or 4". The other reason is that my site is PR0 right now, and even though my traffic is okay at about 250 visitors/day, I feel the PR0 is kind of embarrassing. I guess it's kind of a "size matters" feeling if you know what I mean. Plus, even if I build up my traffic, I don't think anyone would advertise on my site with a low PR, right?

      2. I understand what you're saying, but wouldn't PR and ranking in the search engines be somewhat linearly related? For example, wouldn't you generally find PR0 sites with low traffic and rankings in the SE's and PR6 with high traffic and high SE rankings?

      3. So, if I am concerned about ranking in the Search Engines, which is really my primary goal, then what is the best way to manage my outbound links?

      And thx for the advice!
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      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

        Okay, thx. Can I ask a couple of questions then?

        1. Why do people pursue page rank? I wanted to do it, because it is kind of a "badge of honor". I want to do, for example, some copyrighting and wanted to be able to say, "I've got a site with PR 3 or 4". The other reason is that my site is PR0 right now, and even though my traffic is okay at about 250 visitors/day, I feel the PR0 is kind of embarrassing. I guess it's kind of a "size matters" feeling if you know what I mean. Plus, even if I build up my traffic, I don't think anyone would advertise on my site with a low PR, right?
        PR may get you some personal pride, but that generally doesn't translate into income. Most advertisers seek targeted traffic and don't care about the length of your little green line. If you attempt to sell links for PR value you are likely to have your page's PR devalued. So yes you can sell it but you often lose just because you sold it.

        Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

        2. I understand what you're saying, but wouldn't PR and ranking in the search engines be somewhat linearly related? For example, wouldn't you generally find PR0 sites with low traffic and rankings in the SE's and PR6 with high traffic and high SE rankings?
        While, that is generally true, it's important to not confuse cause and effect. High PR doesn't cause you to have higher rankings and more traffic. It's higher rankings and more traffic that often leads to higher PR. Don't confuse the effect for the cause.

        Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

        3. So, if I am concerned about ranking in the Search Engines, which is really my primary goal, then what is the best way to manage my outbound links?

        And thx for the advice!
        When you link out to other websites you are personally vouching for the content on those other site's so choose carefully. Select web pages that are highly relevant to the keyword you are targeting and be sure to use relevant keywords in your anchortext. Keep in mind that your outbound links can be to other pages on your website as well as pages on external websites. Internal linking is just as important as external links and I recommend that you create a web of links that interlink all of your websites pages where appropriate.

        Your prime consideration should be how the anchortext and other relevancy signals will influence your own page's relevancy score. Your goal should be to use a strategy that increases your page's relvancy score for your targeted keyword. You may want to consider how useful it makes your page for your visitors, since the more useful your page, the more organic backlinks your page will earn.
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        • Profile picture of the author Why9999
          Originally Posted by dburk View Post

          PR may get you some personal pride, but that generally doesn't translate into income. Most advertisers seek targeted traffic and don't care about the length of your little green line. If you attempt to sell links for PR value you are likely to have your page's PR devalued. So yes you can sell it but you often lose just because you sold it.



          While, that is generally true, it's important to not confuse cause and effect. High PR doesn't cause you to have higher rankings and more traffic. It's higher rankings and more traffic that often leads to higher PR. Don't confuse the effect for the cause.



          When you link out to other websites you are personally vouching for the content on those other site's so choose carefully. Select web pages that are highly relevant to the keyword you are targeting and be sure to use relevant keywords in your anchortext. Keep in mind that your outbound links can be to other pages on your website as well as pages on external websites. Internal linking is just as important as external links and I recommend that you create a web of links that interlink all of your websites pages where appropriate.

          Your prime consideration should be how the anchortext and other relevancy signals will influence your own page's relevancy score. Your goal should be to use a strategy that increases your page's relvancy score for your targeted keyword. You may want to consider how useful it makes your page for your visitors, since the more useful your page, the more organic backlinks your page will earn.
          Thx for the great response. There is so much misinformation out there - that was very helpful.

          So I take it you think there is little value in do follow blog commenting then? I assume that you feel that all blog commenting will do, in general at least, is increase page ranking but not your ranking in search engines (and traffic)?
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          • Profile picture of the author dburk
            Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

            Thx for the great response. There is so much misinformation out there - that was very helpful.

            So I take it you think there is little value in do follow blog commenting then? I assume that you feel that all blog commenting will do, in general at least, is increase page ranking but not your ranking in search engines (and traffic)?
            Hi Why9999,

            No, I didn't mean to imply that blog commenting will not increase your search engine ranking. Quite the opposite is true, it all depends on relevancy, particularly anchortext relevancy as well as the relevancy of text that is in close proximity to your outbound link.

            Keep in mind that most blogging platforms use the nofollow attribute in comment links which removes nearly all SEO benefit. However, blog comments on relevant topics can be very effective at generating targeted traffic to your page and that alone can be of great value.

            Most well executed link building campaigns will yield far more direct traffic than the Search Engines alone will generate. The search engines only account for about 25-30% of all web traffic.
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            • Profile picture of the author Why9999
              Originally Posted by dburk View Post

              Hi Why9999,

              No, I didn't mean to imply that blog commenting will not increase your search engine ranking. Quite the opposite is true, it all depends on relevancy, particularly anchortext relevancy as well as the relevancy of text that is in close proximity to your outbound link.

              Keep in mind that most blogging platforms use the nofollow attribute in comment links which removes nearly all SEO benefit. However, blog comments on relevant topics can be very effective at generating targeted traffic to your page and that alone can be of great value.

              Most well executed link building campaigns will yield far more direct traffic than the Search Engines alone will generate. The search engines only account for about 25-30% of all web traffic.
              I only do dofollow blogs. All of these blogs have a place where you can put in your URL, so there is no real anchortext relevancy. However, I do most of my posting on blogs that are in my niche.

              Is this worth my effort? Or should I concentrate on article submission instead?
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              • Profile picture of the author dburk
                Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

                I only do dofollow blogs. All of these blogs have a place where you can put in your URL, so there is no real anchortext relevancy. However, I do most of my posting on blogs that are in my niche.

                Is this worth my effort? Or should I concentrate on article submission instead?
                Hi Why9999,

                Getting backlinks from "dofollow blogs" will definitely help improve your PR but not necessarily your search engine rankings. You must somehow make your backlink relevant if you want to see your search rankings improve for your targeted keyword. There are numerous ways to accomplish this.

                The most effective way to make your backlink relevant is to use relevant anchortext. There are many blogs pages that allow you to create a username with whatever handle you choose. By using your keyword as your username you are able to create relevant anchortext. If you use your keyword as your domain name then your will make links that use your URL for anchortext relevant. Sometimes you can get away with adding keywords to your name: i.e. Don Burk | Professional PPC Management.

                You may also be able to work relevant text into your comments by relating your profession to your comments:
                Let say you are in the PPC management Business you could talk about how an issue may effect you and other folks in the PPC management business or ask how you could apply someones advice to a PPC management firm or will this even work for PPC management firms?

                Notice how I was able to use my own keywords in a method that was within the context of our discussion yet relevant to both the conversation and my own interest.
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                • Profile picture of the author Why9999
                  Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                  Hi Why9999,

                  Getting backlinks from "dofollow blogs" will definitely help improve your PR but not necessarily your search engine rankings. You must somehow make your backlink relevant if you want to see your search rankings improve for your targeted keyword. There are numerous ways to accomplish this.

                  The most effective way to make your backlink relevant is to use relevant anchortext. There are many blogs pages that allow you to create a username with whatever handle you choose. By using your keyword as your username you are able to create relevant anchortext. If you use your keyword as your domain name then your will make links that use your URL for anchortext relevant. Sometimes you can get away with adding keywords to your name: i.e. Don Burk | Professional PPC Management.

                  You may also be able to work relevant text into your comments by relating your profession to your comments:
                  Let say you are in the PPC management Business you could talk about how an issue may effect you and other folks in the PPC management business or ask how you could apply someones advice to a PPC management firm or will this even work for PPC management firms?

                  Notice how I was able to use my own keywords in a method that was within the context of our discussion yet relevant to both the conversation and my own interest.
                  Gotcha! I should have thought of all that. The problems is that it's tough to find a blog with PR2+ that is dofollow AND in my niche AND allows anchortext. I have posted to probably a dozen such blogs and I don't think any allow anchortext for example.

                  So I have a few questions - if you don't mind of course! - regarding this:

                  1. Based on your experience, would it be better to post to a non-niche site that allows me to put anchortext or to a niche site that does not allow anchortext?

                  2. By anchortext you just mean that the site allow html so I can do the standard a href thing, right?

                  3. I have been posting about 5-8 comments per day, because I was concerned that Google might consider this as "spamming" or "gaming the system" if I did too much. Should I be concerned about this? I've read guys that do 50 comments per day - is that risky do you think? I do not want to do harm after all!
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                  • Profile picture of the author dburk
                    Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

                    Gotcha! I should have thought of all that. The problems is that it's tough to find a blog with PR2+ that is dofollow AND in my niche AND allows anchortext. I have posted to probably a dozen such blogs and I don't think any allow anchortext for example.

                    So I have a few questions - if you don't mind of course! - regarding this:

                    1. Based on your experience, would it be better to post to a non-niche site that allows me to put anchortext or to a niche site that does not allow anchortext?
                    Hi Why9999,

                    The 1st rule of SEO is that search engines rank web pages not websites. The niche of the website is not relevant to SEO because search engines never consider the website topic. Instead they focus on the keywords that are relevant to the specific page. That's why backlinks are so effective when you can add relevant content, particularly anchortext.

                    Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

                    2. By anchortext you just mean that the site allow html so I can do the standard a href thing, right?
                    Generally, any place that you can leave a backlink will allow you to define anchortext, with restrictions of course. Blog comments typically use your name, account name, or your website domain name. Since you are creating the account you are the person that enters that information. If you can work your keyword into the account data that is used for anchortext then you have the ability to create relevant backlinks. So even if you are not able to add hot links to a comment, your account name is often used as the anchortext so be sure to create account handles that include your target keyword.

                    Not every site allows you to do this so you do what you can on each website. If you post really useful comments you often will be given a bit more latitude.

                    Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

                    3. I have been posting about 5-8 comments per day, because I was concerned that Google might consider this as "spamming" or "gaming the system" if I did too much. Should I be concerned about this? I've read guys that do 50 comments per day - is that risky do you think? I do not want to do harm after all!
                    There really is no limit to how many useful comments you can make. Spamdexing teams don't use the number of backlinks as an indicator of spam. They look at the contribution to determine if it merits attribution. No matter if you make one post or 4000, it's the merit of the post that determines if it will be considered spam.

                    Many spammers recommend that you limit the number of backlinks you do, hoping to fly under the radar. Their goal is to get some value, if only briefly, before their backlinks are devalued. If you are making quality posts there are no limits.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Why9999
                      Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                      Hi Why9999,

                      The 1st rule of SEO is that search engines rank web pages not websites. The niche of the website is not relevant to SEO because search engines never consider the website topic. Instead they focus on the keywords that are relevant to the specific page. That's why backlinks are so effective when you can add relevant content, particularly anchortext.



                      Generally, any place that you can leave a backlink will allow you to define anchortext, with restrictions of course. Blog comments typically use your name, account name, or your website domain name. Since you are creating the account you are the person that enters that information. If you can work your keyword into the account data that is used for anchortext then you have the ability to create relevant backlinks. So even if you are not able to add hot links to a comment, your account name is often used as the anchortext so be sure to create account handles that include your target keyword.

                      Not every site allows you to do this so you do what you can on each website. If you post really useful comments you often will be given a bit more latitude.



                      There really is no limit to how many useful comments you can make. Spamdexing teams don't use the number of backlinks as an indicator of spam. They look at the contribution to determine if it merits attribution. No matter if you make one post or 4000, it's the merit of the post that determines if it will be considered spam.

                      Many spammers recommend that you limit the number of backlinks you do, hoping to fly under the radar. Their goal is to get some value, if only briefly, before their backlinks are devalued. If you are making quality posts there are no limits.
                      Wow! Once again, fantastically informative post and much appreciated.

                      Question for you: when you are talking about spamdexing teams, you're talking about at Google, right? Are you saying that they have teams that actually manually monitor some of this? That is interesting!
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                      • Profile picture of the author dburk
                        Originally Posted by Why9999 View Post

                        Wow! Once again, fantastically informative post and much appreciated.

                        Question for you: when you are talking about spamdexing teams, you're talking about at Google, right? Are you saying that they have teams that actually manually monitor some of this? That is interesting!
                        Yes, all the major search engines have spamdexing teams that are dedicated to finding spam and documenting it for improved algorithm performance.

                        Google's most outspoken engineer, Matt Cutts, heads up the Google spamdexing team.
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                        • Profile picture of the author Why9999
                          Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                          Yes, all the major search engines have spamdexing teams that are dedicated to finding spam and documenting it for improved algorithm performance.

                          Google's most outspoken engineer, Matt Cutts, heads up the Google spamdexing team.
                          I didn't know that! Much, much obliged. I've learned as much in a couple days as the last six months.

                          Excuse me while I go forth and conquer...
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  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    To add what Don has said, the PR you see in the Google bar is NOT the real PR. The real PR is refered to as "internal PR". And while (internal) PR is likely used to some degree in search engine ranking, it is merely one of many factors. Therefore, even if PR is used in the rankings, you won't see a direct correlation between PR and the ranking.

    In addition to PageRank, there's a concept called "Hilltop" which tries to detect if pages/sites that link together are related, or as Google calls it, "affiliated". For example, if you have a site with a PR5 and link to another site that Google believes is also owned by you, this link may not pass as much "juice" as a link on the same page that points to another "unaffiliated" page.

    PageRank is a pure math forumula, whereas Hilltop tries to detect if links have some bias.

    And, I'm one that highly believes in linking to well respected, high quality resources as a way to improve your own ranking. Most SEOers believe that linking to "bad neighborhoods" hurts your SEO, so it stands to reason that linking to "good" sites may help your SEO. You may also inherit some of the "trust" and "relevancy" of the pages you link to. In no way will linking to high-quality, relevant pages ever hurt you, and it makes a lot of sense that it should help a page.

    Rumors are Google has cracked down on PR "scultping", which is trying to manipulate the power of PR through the use of the nofollow tag. It's possible that Google may ask of a page that uses a lot of nofollow tags, "If it's such a good page, why do you have so many spammy links on it?"

    I use nofollow only on affiliate links and to site pages such as disclaimers, TOS, contact, etc. IF I link out, I do so to high quality, relevant pages and don't use nofollow.
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    • Profile picture of the author Why9999
      Originally Posted by Kurt View Post

      To add what Don has said, the PR you see in the Google bar is NOT the real PR. The real PR is refered to as "internal PR". And while (internal) PR is likely used to some degree in search engine ranking, it is merely one of many factors. Therefore, even if PR is used in the rankings, you won't see a direct correlation between PR and the ranking.

      In addition to PageRank, there's a concept called "Hilltop" which tries to detect if pages/sites that link together are related, or as Google calls it, "affiliated". For example, if you have a site with a PR5 and link to another site that Google believes is also owned by you, this link may not pass as much "juice" as a link on the same page that points to another "unaffiliated" page.

      PageRank is a pure math forumula, whereas Hilltop tries to detect if links have some bias.

      And, I'm one that highly believes in linking to well respected, high quality resources as a way to improve your own ranking. Most SEOers believe that linking to "bad neighborhoods" hurts your SEO, so it stands to reason that linking to "good" sites may help your SEO. You may also inherit some of the "trust" and "relevancy" of the pages you link to. In no way will linking to high-quality, relevant pages ever hurt you, and it makes a lot of sense that it should help a page.

      Rumors are Google has cracked down on PR "scultping", which is trying to manipulate the power of PR through the use of the nofollow tag. It's possible that Google may ask of a page that uses a lot of nofollow tags, "If it's such a good page, why do you have so many spammy links on it?"

      I use nofollow only on affiliate links and to site pages such as disclaimers, TOS, contact, etc. IF I link out, I do so to high quality, relevant pages and don't use nofollow.
      Thx for the response. I'm not sure what you mean by the nofollow commentary however. I've been doing a little dofollow blog commenting to try to boost my abyssmal PR. I'll go out to sites, usually relevant to my niche, and post comments on them. However, I only do this if they're dofollow, i.e. they don't have the nofollow in their source. This is okay, right?
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Rankin
    My answer to your question is to simply be natural. If you really find some quality content on another website then link to it you really want to. Don't link out just because you think Google will like it.

    If you link out to other websites without the no-follow tag or some javascript in place, then yes you send out pagerank, but it's ok. You conserve most of it unless you're building an insane link farm with a lot of outbound links.

    The truth is nobody really knows exactly how Google works when it comes to organic rankings, we only speculate. And your best bet is to be natural about everything you do in terms of linking out and you should be fine.

    My opinion is that I'll link to someone if I got value from the site and I think my readers would too - that's the only way. I won't link out to some authority site just to make Google think my site is good, I personally think that's nonsense.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kurt
      Originally Posted by Scott Rankin View Post

      My opinion is that I'll link to someone if I got value from the site and I think my readers would too - that's the only way. I won't link out to some authority site just to make Google think my site is good, I personally think that's nonsense.
      I personally think that linking to high quality sites purposely is good SEO. It's highly unlikely linking to highly respected sites will hurt, and many advanced SEOers believe you inherit some of the properties of the pages you link to. Dissmissing the theory as "nonsense" is the real nonsense.

      With this said, the truth is that the most important aspect of SEO is really all about numbers. More words. More pages. More domains. More links.

      Then mix up viable SEO strategies. It sure won't hurt to put links to high quality pages on some of your resources.

      Fact is, Google and all SEs struggle to come up with good, relevant results for an estimated 40-60% of ALL queries. This is due to the actual search queries being "unique" and one of a kind, with no sites well optimized for.

      And the best way to get this traffic is to have numbers, which allow for the most combinations of words and other factors.
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      • Profile picture of the author Why9999
        Originally Posted by Kurt View Post

        I personally think that linking to high quality sites purposely is good SEO. It's highly unlikely linking to highly respected sites will hurt, and many advanced SEOers believe you inherit some of the properties of the pages you link to. Dissmissing the theory as "nonsense" is the real nonsense.

        With this said, the truth is that the most important aspect of SEO is really all about numbers. More words. More pages. More domains. More links.

        Then mix up viable SEO strategies. It sure won't hurt to put links to high quality pages on some of your resources.

        Fact is, Google and all SEs struggle to come up with good, relevant results for an estimated 40-60% of ALL queries. This is due to the actual search queries being "unique" and one of a kind, with no sites well optimized for.

        And the best way to get this traffic is to have numbers, which allow for the most combinations of words and other factors.
        I've noticed this and am starting to really concentrate on page optimization and other similar techniques. I've noticed that I am starting to get a quite a few small and unusual queries coming in from the search engines, stuff I'd never imagined. It all adds up...

        Thx for the advice...
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    • Profile picture of the author Why9999
      Originally Posted by Scott Rankin View Post

      My answer to your question is to simply be natural. If you really find some quality content on another website then link to it you really want to. Don't link out just because you think Google will like it.

      If you link out to other websites without the no-follow tag or some javascript in place, then yes you send out pagerank, but it's ok. You conserve most of it unless you're building an insane link farm with a lot of outbound links.

      The truth is nobody really knows exactly how Google works when it comes to organic rankings, we only speculate. And your best bet is to be natural about everything you do in terms of linking out and you should be fine.

      My opinion is that I'll link to someone if I got value from the site and I think my readers would too - that's the only way. I won't link out to some authority site just to make Google think my site is good, I personally think that's nonsense.
      Okay, I'm doing that now. I was "acting naturally" but got scared...
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