Do backlinks need to be clicked to pass linkjuice?

[Eslam-yosef]

In fact, it's not like that.

I will tell you a very important rule about backlinks and really hard to find it. Tha main point is that the link need to be discovered by Google. And, the page which contain the link must have popularity in Google search results which mean a lot of people entering the page through search results. This what we call "the Quality of the link"

Keep up with your link building journey.

[Eslam-yosef]

I think it's about Page popularity and users engagements. Popularity in search results means a lot of spiders in the page. And, when a user clicks the link, there's a spider follows him to the new page. And it's all about the spider discovered your page and your link as well (as I think).

[Addythenurse]

In that case, wouldn't it be ideal to submit the page to google indexing right after it's published?

[MonicaOConnor]

Submitting the page to Google for Indexing doesn't guarantee that the backlinks will be crawled, but it can be a good way to try to force them to be crawled.

[Addythenurse]

Good idea. I wonder if it would seem "un-natural" however?

[MonicaOConnor]

I don't think so. I usually fetch and render then submit my pages anytime I add one to my site, or make a significant change, like adding content or changing images. Nothing unnatural about it.

[anthonydnelson]

Absolutely not. Spam links still work fantastic for ranking a site (temporarily). Those are links that never get seen or clicked, they pretty much just get crawled. Don't go the spam route, but also don't worry too much about people clicking links. I've gotten a ton of great links that have sent very, very little referral traffic, meaning links on popular posts still don't guarantee getting any/many clicks.

[MonicaOConnor]

So, are you saying that a link having traffic kind of disqualifies it as spammy? Or at least in the eyes of Google?

[max.favilli]

I would be surprised.

Google knows a lot, but not everything. Unless GA tracking code is installed google shall not know about things such a user click.

If they were passing page juices only for clicked backlink they would be ruling out a too big chunk of the web. It doesn't sound logic to me.

Also it doesn't sound realistic to analyze all users click in the world when refreshing google index, they do have a lot of metal, but not that much.

[Mission-Quest]

Backlinks do not have to be clicked in order for them to count as linkjuice. Recently my org (missionquest.org) joined MOZ and it helped our backlinks and  improved our SEO.