Most of the webmasters and SEOers know the importance of link building, including me. And we are trying to achieve inbound links at all costs, some people even purchase links to game search engine algorithm despite it is seriously violating Google guidelines and they can get caught. But nearly none of us would really want to link out to other websites, reason is simple, original Google PageRank algorithm makes us wary that the more external links a page has the more link juice it will lose. In our minds, we are scared to sacrifice PageRank to feed other potential competitors (you are linking to relevant topics, aren’t you). But is Google working in this way? Should we really not to link out to other websites?
seo link out
SEOmoz invited Marshall Simmonds, CEO of Define Search Strategies and Chief Strategist for the New York Times, to Whiteboard Studios. Marshall introduced how he managed SEO for broad topic pages, including create editorial contents and link to relevant (and useful of course) websites, even they are competitors. The idea is to either build a destination page or a jumping off page, which both of them will benefit search experience in my mind. But is this limited to broad topic SEO? I don’t think so. Let’s forget about wikipedia, new york times and about.com, they are too big. Take blogging as example, do top SEO bloggers really petty to give links away? I don’t see that. They link to useful resources, make it convenient for SEO community to find useful contents, why shouldn’t Google encourage people to do so?
Toolbar PageRank is no longer important, (This blog has TBPR of 3, but barely ranks for any SEO relevant keywords as it’s very young and don’t have many quality inbound links) it’s just a memory for most of SEO veterans. And we should stop thinking SEO using original PageRank algorithm, and we should optimise our website for the convenience of our audience.
So, as long as linking out can make your audience convenient, don’t hestitate to do it. And please keep in mind, reciprocal links on your sidebar don’t make your website easier to utilise.
How about you? Do you often link out to others?
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I do, but the site I link to has to have great quality content and relevance.
Frankly, I’m not really a fan of linking out, unless its relevant. Especially if it is a company website.
If its a personal blog, then sure, linking to other sites would be fine…