Introduction
This article focuses on advantages and disadvantages of links including incoming and outgoing links from a web site. The reason why it’s here is very simple; There are myths about how harmful links could be. In order to achieve the simplicity, I decided to use Q&A style. List down in order to learn about incoming links as well as outgoing links and their importance within SEO.
Q: What is an incoming link?
A: Incoming (also called as „inbound“) link is a piece of HTML code, which shows itself in browser as a text (or even image), and after clicking on that text, it points a visitor to your site.
Q: What is an incoming link good for?
A: Any incoming link is good, because it means two things. Firstly, it allows people to discover your site. Naturally, a link is valuable only if placed on a „visible“ place (pages with human visitors). Secondly, a link allows search engines to find your site. Moreover, they result in high popularity what positively affects your site in SERP (search engines results pages).
Q: What is anchor text and how is it related to incoming links?
A: Anchor text is exactly what people click on in order to visit your site. So, if there is text called ‘click here’ pointing to your site, then ‘click here’ is the anchor text. Basically, anchor text says which phrases are relevant for the destination site.
Q: Can be an anchor text an image? What then?
A: Yes, images can be used as links, so they’re considered as anchor text too. In this case, the only relevant factor is ALT and possibly TITLE attribute. These attributes say what is your site about. It’s not necessary to use both of them. Especially, it’s not recommended to use same content for both attributes.
Q: Can anyone ruin my web site via creating even 1 inbound link?
A: No! This is a myth, but it’s not based on rational ideas. Just imagine what if it would be possible to do so. Then, your competitors could easily put link to your web site on a page which would result in a penalty. This is the basic reason, why it’s not interesting who links to you and it’s not necessary to look for so-called quality links only.
Q: What is a quality link?
A: Many people consider quality link to be a link from high
PageRank page. However, this is not true. If there are 100 links placed on a page of PageRank 7, they have less importance than 10 links placed on a page of PageRank 5 value. Generally speaking, quality link is a link which is obtained manually, mostly after conversation between two or more webmasters, or after putting a link to your web site by a webmaster who finds your site useful even without letting you know. Very quality links can be obtained in forums by their members. Forums’ members like to exchange links.
Q: Why are incoming links so important for SEO?
A: The more incoming links you have, the more popularity in search engines you take. However, you must have got links from forums, related sites, and trusted directories in order to get what quality content deserves. Moreover, wisely chosen anchor text can give you as much traffic as you dream about. Off-site SEO (including links) does miracles, but does nothing without proper On-site SEO.
Q: What is the ‘nofollow’, or ‘noindex’ attribute?
A: In order to point to sites without giving them any importance within search engines, some webmasters, blogs, or so use one (or both) of these attributes.
Q: What if incoming link contains ‘nofollow’ attribute?
A: Nothing bad happens! Firstly, some people will discover your site anyways, no matter if a link to it contains any attribute. Secondly, these attributes aren’t taken seriously nowadays. It’s because they’re marks of „links busines“ where people sell links and those which aren’t paid, are marked with one, or both of these attributes. Anyways, search engines follow these links.
Q: Is Flash or JavaScript link good or not?
A: No! Flash and JavaScript links (or even links within Java applets) aren’t worth it. This applies to frames, iframes and other tricks too. Even though many JavaScript links can be followed, it's questionable if they carry some weight as usually JavaScript links are used for advertising purposes and so on!
Q: Is it good to have more than 1 link per domain?
A: Yes, it’s very good! Unlike unexperienced SEO's say, every link is here for visitors, not for search engines. There are fucking lies out here about how good is to have only 1 link per domain, however they’re not based on truth. Simply, more links from quality pages mean higher probability to attract human visitors to your site. And if links aren’t published on pages with significant traffic, they’re still good. Let’s imagine, a web site has 3000 internal pages. Case A: There are 3000 outgoing links to external domains, every domain is different, and only 1 link points to your site. Case B: The same amount of internal pages and links, but with link to your site on each page. What do you think about the final effect? You don’t need to be a scientist in order to understand that 3000 links are better than a single one.
Q: What about IP's with different C-class?
A: Basically, the same C-class is a mark of related network. Some people think it’s necessary to have links from different networks only. However, this is not possible and is a wrong conclusion. As an example, I’d like to give you forums; If people on some forum find your site useful, they will share much more than 1 link to your site. Got it? In my opinion, 1 link per 1 network is a mark of targeted SEO instead of quality links.
Q: Which incoming link is the best one?
A: A permanent and stable link from web site which has clear goals, stable content and is old.
Q: OK, I know everything necessary about incoming links, but what are outgoing links?
A: An outgoing link is every link on your webpage which points to any external domain.
Q: Can any outgoing link ruin my web site’s rankings?
A: No! This is just another myth. You’re not responsible for who is being penalized, or who is honest. It’s proven fact that quality sites link to quality sites only, but poor sites link to quality sites too. In order to satisfy this scheme, you should consider every link exchange very wisely. Bear in mind, that you never know if anyone (who you link to) decided to change his/her site’s content. Always check links to external domains if they point to what you want them to.
Q: What if I link to an expired domain, a domain which changed it’s content, or anything what I consider to be bad for me?
A: You should remove such links without any explanation, or even contacting webmasters of those sites.
Q: What should I do in order to offer quality listings on my web site?
A: You should have your linkpage linked from the homepage directly. You should offer direct link, no JavaScript, Flash or Java links. Don’t use iframes or frames and don’t publish more than 30 outgoing links per page if possible.
Q: Should I sell links on my linkpage?
A: It’s up to you. However, count on that people will not like you if you sell even PR5 links. Personally, I give links for free if I find the destination site useful.
Q: Is it possible to improve my rankings via outgoing links?
A: Yes, it’s possible! You should link to related sites, or sites which are good enough if you run a directory. Changes in rankings aren’t significant, but you can try remove all outgoing links from your site. Later (3-6 months after), put them back. You should notice changes in traffic.
Modified on October 13, 2009; Originally published on August 17, 2007