Back-link Quantity

[Paul78]

Hi there,

I am writing a post for a well respected blog in our industry. I'm debating on either to target 1 key-phrase in this post with an external back-link, or  to go target 2-3 back-links in the post. Just a few questions on this:

1. Would including 1 external back link be more beneficial than having 2 or 3 external back-links in the post?

Kind Regards

[RobertFisher]

Gary,

Since you say it is a well respected blog in your industry (or,even if it weren't), I would think that decision would be based on what you are posting on. If it is a short post on a very specific subject (and assuming the content is quality) I would suggest one unless something in it would be clarified or elucidated by another link. You can put more in a longer post without it looking spammy.

Content is King, so don't put any in just to put some in. If they make sense to be there they are more likely to be shared by those reading the post. If they are superfluous, they are likely to be annoying. A personal opinion is that on a short post I find it distracting to see multiple backlinks.

Best

[sesertin]

Another thing to take into consideration that always a given amount of a pages own page rank is forwarded to the page you link to. So if you have a page with a PR of 2 and have 20 outbound links, the pagerank the actual page forwards will be divided equally between the 20 links, provided you place one link. If you place more links than the second one pointing to your site will carry slightly less value than the first one did (but will carry some), although it will carry anchor value. So, agreeing with Robert: don't look spammy,  but you can take placing more links into consideration.

[RobertFisher]

Good point Zsolt. Then, if you have a page that really needs the full value, use only links to that page with appropriate anchor text (so one is likely better than two to same page - but I can't prove that). If it is ok for your needs to spread some love to a couple of pages, you can.

[Paul78]

Thanks for your reply Robert.

100% Agree with everything you said.

What about this one, does it matter where the anchor text is positioned in the article? Does it carry more weight being at the top of the article if the article is lets say 1000 words long? Have you had experience of this?

Kind Regards

[Paul78]

Yes, I have read time and time again that if two links on an article are going to the same page, the first link is the one that counts, however I am not sure there is much proof that this is the case, or is there?

[sesertin]

I had a little experimentaiton with this one and according to my results there is difference, but you can try it yourself if you can post an article somewhere where you are able to put in extra links later

[RobertFisher]

It does matter where. The higher in content is considered by most to be better than lower. I use the example of first paragraph better than second better than third...