[Question] Do outbound links help or damage SEO?

4ry4n said:

Hello,

I have been wondering, let's say I write a blog post about something and point links to a couple of natural sources of my data,
am I helping or damaging the SEO of my site with that?

And should I care if they are follow or nofollow links?


Regards,

Click to expand...

Whether or not outbound links affect your site's organic search rankings is a topic that has been debated by SEOs for a long time.

There is no getting away from the fact that linking out to authoritative sources can help to give context to your content and can also help users to trust your website's pages.

As well as the fact that unnatural outbound links can harm your website's performance.

But some SEOs believe that outbound links can have a more significant impact than most would find, and this study from Reboot Online claims that "external links remain a ranking factor and good SEO best practice."

It is safe to say that, while there is no confirmation on the specific extent of the impact that outbound links can have on a site's visibility, they are something that SEOs should be paying more attention to.

4ry4n said:

Hello,

I have been wondering, let's say I write a blog post about something and point links to a couple of natural sources of my data,
am I helping or damaging the SEO of my site with that?

And should I care if they are follow or nofollow links?


Regards,

Click to expand...

Any site that has too many external links might be considered spammy by the search engines.

Also, adding too many outbound links will distract your readers and direct them away from your website. Long-form content may naturally have more external (and internal) links. But if you’re linking several times within paragraphs, then it becomes disruptive. On certain devices, it will definitely ruin the user experience because too many hyperlinks can cause users to unintentionally click a link when they were simply trying to scroll further down the page.

4ry4n said:

Hello,

I have been wondering, let's say I write a blog post about something and point links to a couple of natural sources of my data,
am I helping or damaging the SEO of my site with that?

And should I care if they are follow or nofollow links?


Regards,

Click to expand...

While there are still some unanswered questions, this study seems to show that including outbound links to high authority sites can help your SEO efforts. At the very least, it won't hurt your SEO, so if you're hesitant to link out to other sites, just consider these results.

4ry4n said:

Hello,

I have been wondering, let's say I write a blog post about something and point links to a couple of natural sources of my data,
am I helping or damaging the SEO of my site with that?

And should I care if they are follow or nofollow links?


Regards,

Click to expand...

Yeah, big time. In fact, outbound links are one of the most important and versatile sources of ranking power, because search engines view them as third-party endorsements of your website.

Sheldon Mooze said:

Any site that has too many external links might be considered spammy by the search engines.

Also, adding too many outbound links will distract your readers and direct them away from your website. Long-form content may naturally have more external (and internal) links. But if you’re linking several times within paragraphs, then it becomes disruptive. On certain devices, it will definitely ruin the user experience because too many hyperlinks can cause users to unintentionally click a link when they were simply trying to scroll further down the page.

Click to expand...

With a bit of CSS on the outbound links you can fix all of that.

4ry4n said:

Hello,

I have been wondering, let's say I write a blog post about something and point links to a couple of natural sources of my data,
am I helping or damaging the SEO of my site with that?

And should I care if they are follow or nofollow links?


Regards,

Click to expand...

All of this is just my personal opinion on SEO, but I think it's good to stop viewing the Google algorithm as purely numerical in its application and start viewing it for what it's intended to be - a replication of human interaction and how we endorse each other.

Think of it this way - if you view something as reputable, you're going to verbalise it and say it.
Example: You like a particular burger chain, so you tell your friends about it (write a blog about it) and then you provide the address/location (providing a link) for them to check it out themselves.

If you're adamant that this place is great then you might proactively try and encourage them to try it out then your tone of voice is going to reflect that (********).
If you're suggesting it but not entirely sold yourself then your tone of voice is probably going to be less enthusiastic (NoFollow).
In both situations you've still given the words (content), the address (link), but only the tone of voice in your endorsement (********/nofollow) is different.
Providing an address or not doesn't necessarily influence your own personal authority on the subject though - it's not detracting from your personal knowledge/experience, just contributing to others. (unless you go linking out to the dodgy burger dealer that keeps peddling crack cocaine or gets your friends mugged)

In regards to the importance of authority: it makes sense that if you're claiming a fact and you're citing it, the information you cite from a well known figure (e.g. Albert Einstein, human DA: 97) is going to be better than if you cite information from a guy you know who partly completed a degree (Bobert McSciencePants, human DA: 4).

Google is always trying to "humanise" the Google experience, help searches more helpful and relevant, etc. So even though there are numbers behind the interface, they're ultimately trying to replicate a non-numerical human experience. You should aim for that.

Link out when it makes sense to do so for a reference, don't link out if it doesn't make sense to provide a link.

Disclaimer: Yes, people can lie and fake their tone of voice and stuff. People buy backlinks and pay to influence link type, placement, etc all the time.
Everything is able to be manipulated or faked, and humans are like that in real life.

No, if outbound links have quality and come from reliable sources, then you won't have any problems with them, in fact, they don't have some real impact on organic ranking. The only thing that you need to be careful about here is that if you are working inside of an affiliate marketing field, many networks won't accept traffic that comes from external links.