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What's the value difference between an internal link vs an external link?

by Bigtimenoobie
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I see some sites that have a vast majority of their links being internal links but not as many external links......do external links hold more weight in the SERPS as far as SEO goes?

Thanks
#difference #external #internal #link
  • Profile picture of the author PhilipSEO
    Originally Posted by Bigtimenoobie View Post

    I see some sites that have a vast majority of their links being internal links but not as many external links......do external links hold more weight in the SERPS as far as SEO goes? Thanks
    Internal links are links are links from one page of a site to another page on the same site. External links (backlinks) are immensely more powerful for rankings (unless they are nofollow).
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  • Profile picture of the author WasabiHound
    Hi Bigtimenoobie

    A good question, the current view on factors affecting pagerank is that External Links have more weight for SEO than internal links. That said, Google looks at the quality (links from authority sites) as well as the quantity of your links.

    However internal links are valuable because they help your readers navigate your site and also help the searchbot crawl and index your site so there is SEO value there too. So don't short change yourself by missing out on it.
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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by WasabiHound View Post

      Hi Bigtimenoobie

      A good question, the current view on factors affecting pagerank is that External Links have more weight for SEO than internal links. That said, Google looks at the quality (links from authority sites) as well as the quantity of your links.
      Hi WasabiHound,

      While that may be a widely held view, it could be in error. When compared individually, link by individual link, a single internal link may often be more powerful than any single link to your page from an external source. This is due to your internal link reflecting the collective strength of all inbound links to the referring page. For example a link from your home page may be much more powerful than a link from an external page with less PR.

      Of course we cannot rely completely on internal links since they derive all of their PR from external links. Yes, external links may be considered to be of high importance, but this doesn't mean that they hold more weight than an internal link. At least not on a one-to-one comparison.
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      • Profile picture of the author Shaunman
        While I don't think that you need to have PR to pass PR (It just doesn't fit with what I have seen) you need both internal and external links.

        You've heard about how getting all your links from one site is not a good idea, well if all your links come from you that is even worse.

        Internal links are good, but it is just one part of the formula. Combine it with blog commenting, article marketing, forum posting, etc.
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        • Profile picture of the author dburk
          Originally Posted by Shaunman View Post

          While I don't think that you need to have PR to pass PR (It just doesn't fit with what I have seen) you need both internal and external links..
          Hi Shaunman,

          That is a fairly astute observation, however it technically is not correct. You have to be indexed before you are assigned PR, and you have to be indexed before you pass PR, however every page that is indexed has PR unless it has been devalued due to a violation. When a page is devalued of PR it no longer passes PR. If this wasn't true then there would be no better strategy than gaining links from pages that had their PR devalued. Huh... the Backlinks from Penalized Pages Strategy... let me know how that works out for you!

          When you build pages that are subsequently indexed you are adding PR to the universe of the World Wide Web. In essence you are creating some of your own PR. However this self-created PR is in the smallest measurable increment. To make any substantial gains you need to reflect PR from other documents to gain any PR advantage over the lowliest of all non-devalued documents.
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  • Profile picture of the author elchupacabra12
    yes, because it`s more harder to get external links
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  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi Bigtimenoobie,

    Internal links can distribute PR throughout your website, but you must have external inbound links to gain that PR in the first place.

    So while an internal link can be very powerful, that power is reflected from other pages on your website. You need links from external sources before the pages of your website can gain PR to be passed on. And yes, an internal link may be much more powerful than a particular inbound link from an external document, so you should definitely optimize your internal link structure.
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  • Profile picture of the author escapethematrix
    So the question is, HOW do you create an internal linking strategy? If you have multiple pages, plus a blog, and you want to push link juice to your root page, how do you do it?
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