Importance of Outbound Links in SEO For SERP Ranking?
Reading the title can make you think how come outbound links in SEO is so important.
Well, backlinks are as old as the internet.
Maybe, you will argue claiming that backlinks are the base of the internet as backlinks help to hold the internet together.
The plethora of internet has always deeply relied on the backlinks and for a really long time, backlinks were the foremost important thing used for website ranking.
Hence, it is not a surprise witnessing backlinks turning into a commodity. Backlinks are valuable, cost money, can be sold and also can be bought.
Because they are valuable and essential, most of the bloggers and internet marketers prefer including outbound links in SEO along with other external links in their posted contents.
These outbound links in SEO are valuable not because they are making you acquire something valuable for free, but also they help to increase another site’s authority easily.
Here is some information on the importance of outbound links in SEO for your content. However, it is important to use these from an SEO perspective but from a reader’s perspective.
What Are Outbound links in SEO?
There are various terms being used on this for backlinks. These links are used in your content to point to external sources. Along with these links, there will another link that can be marked for users to let them follow or not to follow.
If you are using such links in your content, then you are asking the search engine not to count that link as a backlink. In other words, you don’t want search engines to pass any value through that link.
That link will only exist for the benefit of your readers.
There’s another thing known as the “no-follow attribute was first introduced”.
What’s that?
This attribute was first introduced in 2005 by Google and the purpose was to downgrade spam links including blog comments.
However, from the time it was first introduced, this attribute has become a victim for its own success while being heavily misused. Before it was introduced, a normal link was always followed but this was an exception.
As the backlinks have become a bit of a commodity nowadays most of the bloggers and webmasters feel reluctant including the links within the contents.
Including these backlinks are link giving expensive things away and they started making outbound links in SEO no-follow. Well, this no-follow attribute is no exception anymore and webmasters consider that it has become standard.
This no-follow link is a follow link and one should not be using it unless they have got some valid reason for using these.
So, here’s a list including some of the situations for using no-follow attributes.
- Partnered & Paid Links
Using this one is like working without being practical. Generally partnered links do not deserve credits but they are used to bring sales. Even the search engine also does not like websites loaded with partnered links.
In addition, paid links should be marked as no-follow to avoid the risk of penalties from Google.
- Unreliable or Spammy Websites
If you have ever linked your website with a dodgy one, then it will better use the no-follow attributes.
- Websites That Are Not Relatable With Your Domain
The time, you mistakenly link your website with a website that has nothing to do with your website, then it is always better to mark them as a no-follow outbound link in SEO.
- Several Links Pointing On A Single Website
You will not have to get worried about your website if you have linked a website with your site more than once. You can just simply mark the second and third one as no-follow links. The only thing you will have to do is to balance. That’s it.
- Blog Comments
Generally, outbound links in SEO do not belong in the comment section on the first place, but if you want to make it happen, then you must mark that link as a no-follow.
- Sites With A Huge Number Of Backlinks
For instance, Wikipedia has a huge amount of outbound links in SEO and for that reason, they do not need any other backlinks to help them in SEO.
They already use a lot of outbound links in SEO and there is no need for any extra backlinks for their website anyway. Think you are going to link a site in Google and again Wikipedia pops up.
Well, it can be said that Wikipedia is not always correct and there is no offense to link your site with other reliable sources.
Now, you might ask why one must link outbound links in SEO?
Or what’s the importance behind this?
To answer these questions, some reasons are introduced in these following paragraphs you can check them out for more information. Let’s find these out.
- It Is The Right Thing To Consider Doing For Your Website
So, yes. That’s right actually. Linking your website with other reliable sources is the best thing to do for your site. But, why?
Because this is the foundation of the internet and this is how it works.
And it will be really bad for you considering to undermine the concept without any valid reason.
If you are linking your website with another available website successfully, then you are actively participating for internet community accomplishment. If other sites are reliable and providing you with valuable information, then you can link out to those sites without being afraid.
- Do Not Expect Yourself To Everything
This can be harsh but very much true. The topics you will be writing does never mean that the topic will be familiar with your knowledge. There will be a different and unfamiliar topic too and you will have to write content based on proper research.
- Context and Relevancy
Linking your site with other sites can be easy and valuable for your business. But, make sure you are linking your site with related websites.
In this way, you will be able to make the search engine understand the content topic.
- Passive Outreach
Outreach your site outbound links in SEO as this is something most bloggers and internet marketers do not find appreciating.
They think it is kind of begging without knowing the exact time it will cost. You can use outbound links in SEO as outreach proposes as well because this is not time-consuming.
And you can take it a bit further by making it less passive.
