About external links to highly authoritative sites

[gamslo]

How much should we consider links to external sites as Google tends to focus on quality within the site?
Also, does collecting links from high quality sites affect your rating?

[universal4]

This point is consistently debated.

Some say any outgoing link send juice away from your site.

The other side of the debate says that outgoing links to authority sites can help.

In my opinion, some outgoing links can help, if they are pointed at good and healthy sites, with good content, and I think most importantly are good for the visitor and fit within the content or topic of the page where the link resides.

An outgoing link to a page about blue widgets makes more sense on an article about blue widgets, or maybe even red widgets but an outgoing link from the same page to a page about race cars does not.

Rick
Universal4

[big fish]

This point is consistently debated.

Some say any outgoing link send juice away from your site.

The other side of the debate says that outgoing links to authority sites can help.

In my opinion, some outgoing links can help, if they are pointed at good and healthy sites, with good content, and I think most importantly are good for the visitor and fit within the content or topic of the page where the link resides.

An outgoing link to a page about blue widgets makes more sense on an article about blue widgets, or maybe even red widgets but an outgoing link from the same page to a page about race cars does not.

Rick
Universal4

i agree with rick, some outgoing links to truly authoritative on topic links useful to your visitors is good for SEO.

just be sure they're top resources and include 2-3 authority links per content piece.

good luck!

[wonderpunter]

I agree that juice can be sent from external links.. however I also believe that having a complete page of content will also improve your ranking, so the more relevant and informational your page is better the ranking, this includes backlinks to other sites IMO

[BCGame Affiliates]

Rick hit the nail on the head!

[MJM]

Just use common sense and build for your users. If it makes sense to link to a source do it - but be mindful of the anchor you are using in relation to the juice you are sending.

[PaulEchere]

Completely support what has been said above. You should first of all make sure you have good long-form (where appropriate) content, which is relevant to the subject you want to cover. Once you have dialed that in - linking to high authority sources makes sense, as you will be referencing places which talk about similar things or which you have used yourself.

[Progameinc]

Here is an article on Semrush that says more or less what have said above: https://www.semrush.com/blog/outbound-links/
I use Rank Math SEO plugin and you cannot get a 100% page score if you don't insert at least 1 outbound link in your page.
As for my sites I insert links to other websites always do-follow..

[CasinosBroker]

In my opinion it's good to link out to specific resources, example: a Wikipedia page.

I think it's essential & crucial to help the visitor of your website with high quality content (even if it means linking out to other resources).

[AkiSegawa]

For SEO purposes, this might work alright. In my practice, we use plenty of external links, but as all content, it must be organic and look well on the text and in page. I wouldn't focus on this too much though, there are other things that are more important for SEO. I always go with the rule to provide actual value with all of my content, links or not links.

[Artem]

It's okay to link to a good site.

[Maheaatom]

Based on my experience external links to highly authoritative sites (like Wikipedia, government sites, but also strong industry sites and even competitor websites) have some positive effect.

However, it's important to link to pages that appear to be persistent and whose URLs aren't likely to change.

[mickyfu]

Going back many years I used some form of plugin to make outgoing links (don't remember what) my traffic actually shot up, but this was short lived and shot back down. That is my only experience with it.

[gm2891]

Personally, I believe that linking out to others, whether they are competitors or a good source of informational content, can help your rankings. The key is to choose a correct source to link to because the wrong one can have the opposite effect even if you link to very high authority resources.


Some reckon that (ideally) your site should have the same or similar outbound links as competitors in the top 10, as this helps Google determine a group of sites to which you also belong. There are by the way a couple of tools out there that can show you a link network of your competitors, not Ahrefs, Semrush.

P.S Just checked now what my top competitor is doing and noticed that they changed outgoing links to exactly the same sources i link to... Hello guys in case you're reading this

[mickyfu]

Personally, I believe that linking out to others, whether they are competitors or a good source of informational content, can help your rankings. The key is to choose a correct source to link to because the wrong one can have the opposite effect even if you link to very high authority resources.


Some reckon that (ideally) your site should have the same or similar outbound links as competitors in the top 10, as this helps Google determine a group of sites to which you also belong. There are by the way a couple of tools out there that can show you a link network of your competitors, not Ahrefs, Semrush.

P.S Just checked now what my top competitor is doing and noticed that they changed outgoing links to exactly the same sources i link to... Hello guys in case you're reading this

Are you using Screaming Frog to check on competitors?

[gm2891]

Are you using Screaming Frog to check on competitors?

Sometimes. But this time I just use my eyes, and I saw that they changed their out links to the ones I have. Not on every page of course, but one one that I'm keeping an eye on...

[gamblingkitty]

you will never know the truth))) but I recommend using sources for your posts and so on, such as forbes, wikipedia and various social networks, and popular sites with licensed pictures. The main thing is to use relevant sources of information....

[pota]

I think outbound links will also have a positive impact.

[Stanpopz]

if the external link is contextually relevant, why not add it? fear of leaking link juice is unnecessary

[Springbok]

I think there definitely some value overall to linking to authority sites from pages and articles. Usually I'd add a 'no follow' attribute though.