This is part II of the Link Building series. (view Part I)
Outbound Linking
This article is going to briefly overview outbound linking and why it can be both good and bad. Don’t fret though, the third and last part of this series will conclude with how to actually manufacturer links to your site — the first two parts are preliminary background articles for those that are new to the industry of link building.
Outbound linking is something some, even very good and amazing, SEOs overlook. When a search engine looks at your site, it looks at what sites are linking to you. But in that process of evaluating where to rank you, it also looks at what sites you are linking to.
To throw out an example, let’s use Google Inside. It’s a site that talks about Google and touches on search engine news and other industry related news. Would it make sense if Google Inside was linking to maybe…a casino site? What about a gardening site? Or even a site that talks about skydiving? Would that make sense to you as a user? If it doesn’t make sense to you, then it certainly won’t make sense to the robots. Related outbound linking — paid or unpaid — is very important. I’ve learned this over time by testing out different links going to various websites.
So back to the example. If Google Inside was linking to a site like Search Engine Watch or Matt Cutts’ Blog, those sites are a direct hit in relativity to Google Inside. Same industry, same vertical, same topics. A search engine will look at this and deem those links to be valuable both for the sites you are linking to and to your site because it helps position you in that specific industry or niche — wherever you may be.
This is the short wrap-up for outbound linking.
Next and last part in the series… How-to Link Building
My Site: http://www.woim.net
World of Instrumental Music
I use wp-SEO for may site, its good and search on Google…..
I think these were really good tips.
Thanks .. I will be putting these to use!
I understand the logic behind it. What I dont understand is how on earth a google bot is able to interpret the content of a site, to decide if it is in the same niche.
Does it simply compare words used on the site, or is there a more complex way of doing it?
Realy nice! THX!
btw if my site is in “ro” language an i linked to other site in “eng” language win page with same subject … i think google is not so smart to translate and compare subject!!!
Spot on Relevancy inbond and outbound is vital to getting better rankings
Peter: Have you ever heard of the product that Google has called AdSense? It analyzes content on a page and provides ads related to that content. Their robots are very VERY advanced and can easily determine what niche you’re in.
Good lord I must be dense.
Jonathan, I have even used Adsense myself on previous sites. Why I didnt think of that I do not know.
Thanks for setting that straight 🙂
I’ve been practicing this with two sites I own, JetEmployment and CFAC by linking between the two as their subject matters are similar. Good series so far; I can’t wait ’til Part III is released!
I think the link optimiser at http://weblogtoolscollection.c.....s-for-131/ is pretty good.
pretty good article; It’s a little more simple than I planned on reading. I thought this would have a bit more to say about Outbound Linking; I can honestly say this is nothing new. I’m not bashing the article however, it’s sound advice… it’s just not “new” advice for someone who’s quite familiar with SEO. Thanks however for sharing this, and verifying what others are already saying.
It will help someone out for sure!
Hi Jonathan, great recovery and solid research went into this topic, congrats!
I can happily elaborate on this topic and say that as a webmaster you are responsible for linking to other relevant sites that will be benefit your visitors experience. Sporadic linking or linking to irrelevant sites will incur a significant penalty in organic rankings.
Once again, great job!
Thanks for the linking tips!
LOL! You know an article is bad when a ‘hott barefoot woman blog’ is dissing you! Just messing with you – lol
Good simple article – always good as a refresher of tried and true methods!
great thoughts on this subject – I have been having this same discussion with another SEM guy.
I have been hearing about this related linking for little bit now and I heard other people state otherwise. Jonathan, have you seen a good deal of this when you are linking yourself? I guess than it makes sense to work harder on having relevant linking than simply anyone linking to you. I was waiting for part II. Thanks.
One question: If you put a rel=”nofollow” 😛 Will it still count as an outbound link or not?
It will not count for Google, but it will for all the other search engines as they do not care about the nofollow tag.