What are Outbound Links? 

Rarely will you go through 100 words on the web without coming across a link. The web is a world of links. When you click a link, it directs you to another webpage. The outbound link plays an important role in the onsite optimization process of SEO. This article looks at Outbound Links, hidden keywords in links and more.

Back to: MARKETING, SALES, ADVERTISING, & PR

Why are Outbound Links Important? 

Outbound links take you to another webpage or website. You will find outbound links on most websites, except for a few. 

Outbound links can be classified into:

• Nofollow link
• Dofollow link

Dofollow links are the regular links on websites. The link does not require coding or modifications. Anytime you create a link it is a dofollow link by default. A dofollow link allows a target webpage to leverage the Google PageRank of your webpage. A nofollow link is an abnormal link. Rather than give you leverage with a webpages Google PageRank, it blocks you from ranking with the page. A nofollow link has a code rel=nofollow tag which prevents the Google spider from following the link. 

Why Add a Nofollow Tag to a Link? 

When you add a nofollow tag to a link, the search spider will not crawl the targeted webpage. Webmasters use nofollow links to deny targeted webpages their Google PageRank juice. For example, you want to link to a social media platform like Facebook or YouTube. Social media sites have millions of inbound links, so your link towards them has little to no effect on ranking. A nofollow link allows you to keep all of your sites PageRank juice to yourself while linking to the targeted webpage. That is the main reason most people use nofollow tags. But if you are providing links to general information sources, dofollow links work fine. 

Its the Right Thing to Do 

Nofollow tags establish you as an authority on a specific resource, and this translates to higher rankings. A target webpages webmaster may link back to you if they think you deserve it. However, not every outbound link should carry a nofollow tag because it affects your Google PageRank despite getting none from your targeted webpage. Some target webpages deserve a dofollow, so dont be stingy. 

What Is Your Destination? 

An anchor text describes your link to visitors. Users see it as clickable underlined texts usually in blue highlights. Since anchor texts describe a link, it serves as a keyword to rank a targeted webpage. Your SEO efforts will receive a significant boost with a good anchor text from another webpage. This is because an anchor text can increase your webpages keyword rankings on the search engine. If a blogger gives you a link, the anchor text you get can increase your site/webpage rankings through target keywords. But you need to allow the blogger to use the keywords as the anchor text to enjoy the rankings. Hidden Keywords Many webmasters pay little attention to the Anchor Title element of a link. This attribute can keep your keywords within while increasing awareness about your targeted webpage. By keeping your title attribute up to date, you have leverage over your competitors since most people ignore this simple but rewarding activity.