Thousands of external links

[Santaur]

My site has supposedly over 4,000 external links from it. Is there a good piece of software that could scrape my site that tell me from which page all the links originate from and where they're all going?

I'm surprised that the number is this high because our entire site is only a few hundred pages.

Here's the site XXXkidecalsXXX.com

(just remove the XXX for the URL.)

If you want to weigh in on any other issues you see with the site, I'd be happy for any suggestions in general.

[FedeEinhorn]

Hi,

Have you considered the social media links you have in each page? 5 in each page. If you have 800 pages there are your 4,000 outbound links.

Hope that helps!

[jesse-landry]

This is spot on ^^

You actually have 10 social media links on each page. 5 in header, 5 in footer. Screaming Frog will tell you this although I hear the software isn't free anymore..

But just as Federico did, simply looking at your page tells me the same. It's definitely the social media links.

My question would be twofold:

1. do you really need to repeat those links?

2. why do you care how many external links your site carries?

[Santaur]

"1) do you really need to repeat those links?"

I don't think so... what do you think is the best way to promote social sharing?

"2) why do you care how many external links your site carries?"

I'm worried that we could be losing our juice by having so many compared to how many links we have pointing to us. Do you not think that I should worry about this at all?

[jesse-landry]

No I don't think you should worry about this at all. Yes, link juice is passing to those social media sites but this is a good thing. This does not affect your PR by any means, it just means what juice that has entered your site will also enter (at a degenerated rate) the social pages. But that doesn't mean the link juice passing on is decreasing the juice that originally came to your site.. Does this make sense? Link juice is a confusing concept.

It drips into your site, and then drips into external links, but that drip doesn't empty your pool... bah. I think the juice reference is what's confusing about this because why wouldn't juice move on and leave?! But it doesn't. In other words, let juice flow to your social media pages. That's a good thing. It means those pages will start to rank better as well further promoting your brand. Especially for a company like yours where I think you could really capitalize from a strong/hip social media presence.

As for having the repeat links... It's really up to you. Clearly, as I said, your site is heavily reliant on social media so perhaps it makes sense. Google Analytics can tell you where people are clicking..perhaps you should look at that and see if people are actually clicking your footer links. But I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about this it isn't going to penalize you by any means.

**This is all just my humble opinion. (I feel like that should be my signature heretofore)