I Love Linking Out And Why You Should Too

March 20th, 2007 · 18 Comments

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From time to time I see comments on this and other blogs that indicate concern amongst bloggers that linking out too much is bad. The nature of the concern is two pronged. One, some feel that linking out too much results you sending traffic away and reducing the stickiness of one’s own blog. Two, some feel that linking out too much will have a negative effect for search engine rankings. I don’t think either should be a concern for the quality blogger.

Linking out equals less stickiness:

Blogs are essentially communication mediums. They allow us to share our thoughts, opinions and knowledge with others. Part of communication is the ability to back up and/or provide examples to support these thoughts, opinions and knowledge. In this respect, linking out gives our communications the “color” needed to put things into perspective. Otherwise the blogger’s thoughts are conjecture and without support.

A well formed posting should therefore have sufficient links to back it up. Readers want to know what real examples look like and what others are saying, and linking out to suitable resources/other blogs accomplishes that goal. Rather than causing one’s own blog to be less sticky, the opposite is true. Well formed postings equals quality postings equals more stickiness and readers.

Linking out hurts search engine rankings:

The main concern here is with theories about how Google’s Page Rank system works. I think this started because someone tried to analyze the thesis put out by Sergey Brin and Larry Page (and others) when they were at Stanford about web hyperlinks as a method of citation. From that analysis came the conclusion that there was only a certain amount of “Page Rank” for the entire universe of web sites and that if one site gains PR, another site must lose some part of it (i.e., that PR is a zero-sum formulation).

I don’t know if that’s true since I’m not a math whiz. But I don’t really care. Big sites link out all the time and it doesn’t seem to hurt them. I link out on my other blogs all the time and it doesn’t seem to hurt my rankings. My point here is that I shouldn’t worry about whether I’m leaking any PR. Rather, I should just worry about doing what’s natural. If natural means linking out, then I link out. Simple (and natural) as that.

If that’s not enough, Danny Sullivan (who is certainly an expert on SEO) doesn’t believe in PR leakage either the last time I checked. If he’s not concerned, I’m certainly not going to worry about it either. That’s why I’m not concerned about giving link love to my commentors (i.e., there are no nofollow attributes on the comment links flowing out of this blog).

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Tags: Blogging Basics · Opinion · Rules For Blogging · SEO

18 responses so far ↓

1 Marc Chase // Mar 20, 2007 at 7:32 am

Glad you addressed this issue. I just posted this very same question over at htt://www.chrisg.com and so far I can’t find a difinitive answer, but I’ll agree with you on this one.

Do what’s natural.

Thanks for the info
2 Adam Ferguson // Mar 20, 2007 at 10:54 am

You made some good points, but I think you missed an important one, at least for new bloggers like myself.

Linking out may make your blog less sticky once you’re established (though, like you said, that’s probably untrue), but when you’re new, trackbacks are a great way to pick up new traffic. Linking and responding to posts made on popular blogs have resulted in very high influxes in traffic for me, and I inevitably gain at least a couple subscribers as well.

Linking out can get you on the map when you’re starting out, and it can hardly hurt to inspire conversation between bloggers within your network.
3 Philip Liu // Mar 20, 2007 at 11:07 am

Adam, I don’t disagree. I certainly can corroborate that with my own experience since launching this blog 1-1/2 months ago.

Thanks for making that comment.
4 Chris Garrett // Mar 20, 2007 at 11:52 am

One thing I say over and over; do what works for your readers. The litmus test for any blogger.

“Would my readers benefit if I do this?”

If we second-guess search engines then our priorities slip from what our readers need to what SE algorithms need.
5 Markk // Mar 20, 2007 at 3:49 pm

Well, it makes sense to me. I see nothing wrong in linking out. What you give will come back to you eventually. The main issue is to maintain a good, quality blog. The hype about link leakage is just too much to swallow. Google keeps changing its method of rating blogs or websites and that means nothing is perfect yet.
6 Marc Chase // Mar 20, 2007 at 4:00 pm

Thank you very much for the response and thank you Chris.

I think I’ve been reading too much and it’s just starting to get confusing. In the end it makes sense to just write for your readers and the rest should fall into place.
7 collis // Mar 20, 2007 at 4:49 pm

All good points! Besides I open links in new windows when I’m reading anyway
8 Hawaii Pictures // Mar 20, 2007 at 11:44 pm

Bill Slawski at SEO By The Sea recently did a post about a Google patent dealing with blog ranking factors.

http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=541

This is seen as a sign of Good Quality:
“A high quality blogroll is a blogroll that links to well-known or trusted bloggers. Therefore, a high quality blogroll that also links to the blog document is a positive indicator of the quality of the blog document.”

This is seen as a sign of Bad Quality:
“If the number of links to any single external site exceeds a threshold, this can be a negative indication of quality of the blog document.”

You are who you link to.
9 broc // Mar 21, 2007 at 1:16 am

i highly doubt pr leakage exists
we’ll see next time page rank updates because i have definitely sent out a ton more links than i have gotten back
10 Tony // Mar 21, 2007 at 3:02 am

Pings that are send out with links to other blogs also attract authors with “I’m writing about your content, check me out”. I’ve exchanged some subscriptions after exchanging a few pings with some fellow bloggers.
11 Marc Chase // Mar 21, 2007 at 8:30 am

Hey Broc,

I think Chris I 100% correct. Im just going to write for readers. If a link makes sense on the content of the conversation and somehow references my post, them I’m linking to it.

Forget Google, Im just doing what makes sense.

Um…. if that doesnt work, maybe you can all link to me when you write about the blog that gets no members
12 jhay // Mar 21, 2007 at 12:22 pm

It all depends on the kind of post you’re writing. If it’s a ’speedlinking’ post then link all you want.

If it’s an ordinary commentary or feature post, then link sparingly.
13 Thilak // Mar 21, 2007 at 1:34 pm

I agree with your point. Frankly, I don’t care much about Pagerank. It’s all about building good relationship with fellow bloggers.
14 jules // Mar 21, 2007 at 2:24 pm

I’m a weak linker.
That being said - whenever I’m reading/researching/meandering through blogs, i’m the type of gurl who opens links in new tabs, so i don’t lose the original site. Polite, I know

Thanks for the added incentive to link more!

cheers,
jules
15 Philip Liu // Mar 22, 2007 at 7:08 am

Jules, I agree with Thilak and Tony that linking out will increase exposure for your blog as other bloggers check out who’s linking to them. That’s a great way to be discovered and encourages them to link back to you.
16 Reader Tips: 25 March 2007 // Mar 25, 2007 at 10:17 am

[...] Share the link love: interesting post over “I Help You Blog�? explaining why linking to other bloggers as often as possible is a good idea. [...]
17 To link or not to link / Andrea Micheloni's blog // Mar 25, 2007 at 5:12 pm

[...] as I help your blog concluded (I’ve taken there the ispiration for this post), now I think [...]
18 John Wesley // Mar 25, 2007 at 9:55 pm

I agree with Chris G. that links should be used when they benefit readers. A lot of bloggers do “link love” promotions, where the purpose is linking for the sake of linking, or trying to build links in an artificial way.