Value of Outbound Links

[troller]

I have read through the information on Link Building and I understand the importance of Inbound Links.  Turning it on it head, how useful is it to provide outbound links on my web pages?  And, do links from domains with higher domain authority get weighted higher?

I have thousands of pages that I could add new articles to which I think would add value, but I want to know whether it will help for SEO.

[ofw12387]

Hello,

the true is that google is against link building strategies, they follow it and penalize your website is they find out that you generated links in an "articial" way.

But it´s a fact that link building still works, very good to be honest

But before you start any link building strategy i would recommend you to read a lot about it, because if you don´t do it properly you are going to be for sure penalized.

Some link building tips i wrote somewhere last week, they may help you  

- Anchors: Do not use the exacly keyword you want to rank as anchor, instead use long sentences including your kw.
- Variety: Do not get just "keyword" links, links with url, branch are also important.
- Nofollow: It´s very important to include nofollow links in your link profile.
- **Footer/sidebar: **Avoid links from footer/sidebar, specially if they are nofollow.
- **Variety of domains: **Get your links from different domains.
- Avoid links fromk penalized websites: It´s also very important to analyze the domains your site is going to be linked are healthy enough.

Good luck

[troller]

Thank you for the reply.

Just to be clear, these are links to other sites that I include on my site.  Correct?

[Highland]

I don't know that outbound links can help you in SEO. Outbound links can definitely hurt you, especially if Google detects that you have too many links or thinks your links are low quality (i.e. link farm).

Links tend to benefit the site you're linking to, provided you're not penalized for the reasons above

[donford]

HI Troller

Outbound links are important. Eric Enge wrote a post for the Moz Blog here

What it comes down to is the way the interwebs where originally envisioned and how page rank is passed between sites. When you speak about a topic and you link to authoritative sites, this provides your USERS more information on the subject and you are doing them a service. As such the algorithms that assign page rank pick up on your link and pass some juice to your link(ee).

But it isn't just a juice leak, it actually helps your site become associated with more authoritative sites. It is natural for web developers and industries to link to similar sites when those sites provide more information than themselves. The idea is for it to be natural, I wouldn't recommend a strategy that links to authoritive sites on every page or even most pages. Rather consider yourself as a reader when do you appreciate a link to a more authoritative site? That is where your outbound FOLLOW links should be.

Hope this helps,

Don

[RyanPurkey]

Reviewing old content is always a good idea as you can trigger positive signals like freshness of content, higher specificity towards searches, and better linking.  Too many people think of links as a one way street, trying to gain links to their site without giving much thought to who they should link out too. For example, let's say you have two articles on two site, both are identically the same (forget about duplicate content for a moment) and have the same numbers when it comes to inbound link strength, PA, DA, etc. The article that links out to better resources (high trust sites, specific examples, sites with frequently updated information) is going to rank higher than the article that does not link to any external resources.  In other words, Google can understand the content of your page, but also the quality of that content by its two way link associations.

[ofw12387]

No, i meant other domains linking your site.

About outlinks, try to link domains that are "healthy" and use "nofollow" attribute if you are not sure

[troller]

Thank you for the reply.  I had tried searching for the topic before posting but did not find anything.  The post is a little short of detail but it is helpful.

[TheeDigital]

I'll add to this that generally you're adding keyword rich anchor text to these links. If I was Google, this is something I would look for when determining if a site is relevant. It likely is 1 of the 200+ factors and likely what site you are linking to and how relevant is are other factors.