Why And How To Use External Links
Starting to create a website you will need to know how to use external links. This is a question people email me about all the time, so here is an article on how to use external links and how it will benefit your site on search engines. There are lots of different thoughts on how to use external links, most people do not like to include external links in their articles or posts to other websites as they feel they will loose their visitor when the external out bound link is clicked.
Another thought is why give a site your link juice or a vote. One important factor that can get your site a Google penalty is if Google thinks you are selling links. So what should you do when it comes down to external links? Will they harm your site? Is it a good idea to have lots of links pointing to your site?
Questions Asked:
- Should I link to sites with a lower page rank they my site?
- Whats best do-follow external links or no-follow external links?
- Should the external link open in the same page or should it open in a new page?
- How many external links should I have on a page or post?
- Will search engines penalize my site if I link to a spam site?
- Should I have blog? What about comments? Should I allow out going links in the comment?
These are just a few questions that I have been asked to answer.
What Should I do?
The first thing you should do is some research on what Google says on how to use external links. After all if you take Google’s advice you should not get a Google penalty for your outbound links that you place on your site, as you are following what they want.
What Google Says:
Linking out: Often it’s just applying common sense.
Relevant outbound links can help your visitors.
- Provide your readers in-depth information about similar topics
- Offer readers your unique commentary on existing resources
Thoughtful outbound links can help your credibility.
- Make visitors want to come back for more analysis on future topics
- Build relationships with other domain experts
When it comes to the less-than-ideal practices of linking out, there shouldn’t be too many surprises, but we’ll go on record to avoid any confusion.
The bad: Un-monitored (especially user-generated) links and undisclosed paid advertising outbound links can reduce your site’s credibility.
- Including too many links on one page confuses visitors
- Hurts your credibility—turns off savvy visitors and reduces your authority with search engines. If you accept payment for outbound links, it’s best to rel=”nofollow” them or otherwise ensure that they don’t pass PageRank for search engines.
- Allows comment spam, which provides little benefit for users. Also, from a search engine perspective, comment spam can connect your site with bad neighborhoods instead of legitimate resources. Webmasters often add the nofollow attribute () to links that are user generated, such as spammable blog comments, unless the comments are responsibly reviewed and thus vouched for.
Below are links to other websites that have some good content on how to use external links if you are trying to create a website they could be helpful.
What We Do
When you are trying to create a website what do we do when it comes to using external links may be of interest to you.
Guest Posts
I do offer guest posts on how to create a website as long as the posts are about website design well written and longer than 800 words. The reason someone offers to write a guest post is to have a link either in the content of the post or in the Bio.
They look for high page rank sites with good authority that are the same topic and offer a do-follow link in the post. Offering another site owner a great article on the topic of his website is a way you can get a do-follow in link on another website.
The other website owner is always looking for a well, unique, article of over 1000 words. Especially when the topic is the same as his site content. If you offer something like that its possible the site owner will allow you one do-follow link in your article.
Writing an article and finding a site owner that excepts articles with a do-follow link is time consuming, but worth it if you are trying to create a website yourself.
Matt Cutts (of Google) tells us about guest posting.
Comments
Another way you can have out going links is to allow people to leave a comment on your post. I thought this was a great idea, it would give people the opportunity to express themselves about what was written. They could have there say so to speak.
The problem is spammers. Every day I would have at least 300 comments to approve. They write the biggest load of rubbish. Think very carefully if you are going to allow comments on your website. I don’t have the time to deal with these people and have closed comments. How ever if you have some great content on how to create a website please contact me.
If you allow comments on your site make sure the sites that you are linking to are the same content as your site. Also be careful about the anchor text you allow in the link. Make sure all links have the rel=”nofollow” and links should open in a new window.
See what Google says about keeping spam of your site.
Out-Going-Links In Your Content And Blog Posts
One of the best ways to try and rank your page for its keyword phrase is to use the keyword phrase in the page title, page description, headings and also have it a few times in the text. This will help Google to know what the page is about what search term it belongs to and where to place the page on its search engine. Having a few good quality backlinks pointing to the page from websites with the same topic as the the page will also help to boost the page in the search results.
Now if you do a search for the keyword phrase you are trying to rank the page for, find the top sites for that search term on Google and some where on your page link to one or two of those sites it will also help your page rank for that search term on Google.
In other words use inbound links and use external links to help Google place your page on its search engine for the keyword phrase you are using. Make sure you open the page in a new window and use the rel=”nofollow” to any external link.
See what others are saying about using external links.
Linking To Other Pages From Your Blog Or A Page
When you create a new blog post try to link to other blog posts and pages on your site. Internal links should not open on another page, they should just open and replace the page you on. This will help your inner link structure and improve your SEO for the page. Another tip use long and short keyword phrases in the anchor text on those internal links.
Check Your Site For Broken Links
If you have taken my advice on how to use external links then you will be linking to other sites. The problem is some sites may go down for what ever reason and you could have linked to them. This is bad for your visitors and search engine robots. Having broken links will damage your sites reputation. Check your complete site at least once a month for broken links, remove or replace any dead or broken links on your site once found. This will help keep your site rank in search engines.
Remove any broken external links quickly and easy with the broken link checker tool.
Summary
Its a good thing to have out going links from pages on your site as long as: When you add a link on to any page on your site always link to content that is relevant to the pages your linking out from.
This will also help to tell Google and other search engines what the page is about.
If you have written a page on website builders then you could do a search on Google for website builders and link to one of the top 3 sites on the first page. These sites have natural ranked on Googles search engine on the first page because Google likes the content and the content is relevant to the search term.
Always open the link in a new window (target=”_blank”) and use the (rel=”nofollow”).
Example Of A External Link Below That Has No Follow And Will Open In New Page:
Never sell links on your site for money, you will get busted by Google. If you are a web developer or SEO expert writing about how to use external links then please feel free to add this page link in your article. If you require any help to create a website or advice on how to get fast reliable website hosting please contact me.
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Category: Search Engine Optimization
PUBLISHED: JUNE 28, 2015 / UPDATED 09, OCTOBER 2023 – ARTICLE: WHY AND HOW TO USE EXTERNAL LINKS
Author: Michael John
To Create A Website
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