Outbound Links From Your Web Site

Help Your User

Any and all outbound links should be used to provide further information to your user that may not already be on your web site. You want to provide as much information as possible to your user and any content that you find on other web sites that would be beneficial for your user is a potential outbound link. If your users find that you link to numerous external web sites that provide more information that they are looking for, and you regularly link to new content, they will think of your site as a hub to more information related to your industry.

Where Do You Place External Links

Do not create a links page! Links pages have been abused for far too long and search engines may discount pages that consist solely of links. If you must, create a resources page but also provide a brief description of each link that you add to the page.  It is best to spread out the number of links that you add to your site, either through an articles section, blog, or news releases page. These are the best methods of adding regular content to your web site, and within your various blog posts and/or articles you can link to external web sites and provide further information to your reader. Your readers will come to think of you as an expert in your field and will also use your site to discover new sites related to your industry or topic.

Search Engines

It is unknown exactly how search engines deal with external links, however, one theory of external links is that it will help search engines determine what industry or theme your web site is related to. For example, if you are a web designer and you link to numerous Internet or web development-related web sites it will be clear to the search engines that you are a part of the Internet and web design industry. If you link to every site that sends you a link request, being lawyers, accountants, pet stores, landscaping companies, and other totally-unrelated web sites it will make it difficult for search engines to determine exactly what area or theme your web site belongs to and may hurt your ranking potential. As well, having a number of external links to related web sites may also cause search engines to think of you as a hub, thus potentially adding to your ranking potential.

So the first thing to remember when using external links is that you want to provide benefit to your user in that you are providing further information to them as they browse your site. If the linked content is significant enough, you may consider writing an article or creating a new page that covers the same type of information. Finally, make sure you only link to relevant web sites that are highly-related to your industry. You want both search engines and users to think of your web site as a hub of information, and if you update regularly, it gives them reason to return to your web site frequently.

Monitor External Links

The most important aspect of maintaining outbound links is to ensure that they don’t break. Check them regularly to ensure that the pages you link to still exist, as broken links can hurt your rankings greatly. Regularly check your links and update or remove them if they no longer exist.