Comments on: 3 SEO Musings on Outbound Link Structure,Keywords and TrustRank

By: Forest

Forest — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:27:40 +0000

Fair enough – thanks! As much as I would love to link to “After the Rain” in every post … probably not a sustainable SEO practice.

By: Leo

Leo — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:04:48 +0000

@ Forest I think you should stop when the links offer no more value to whatever it is you are trying to get the reader to understand. Thanks for reading man.

By: Forest

Forest — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:25:00 +0000

Great post! In fact, I’ve bookmarked it to come back to. I’ve been trying to improve search knowledge in general and, specifically, for a site I write for and have been assisting with Web presence.

I have a question – when I write posts, I tend to travel far and wide with my tangents and even a completely legitimate post might have links to a Nelson video on Youtube and Ferdinand de Saussure’s Wiki page. (This is an example, but I’m sure I’ve hit that level of randomness.)

While I think it makes the post more entertaining, would linking to things such as that hurt the site? I assume that Wikipedia and YouTube are trusted, but they’re definitely not related (directly) to the topic at hand, or the site in general.

This is probably a very subjective question, and I think you basically answer it, but is there a certain number of outbound links that you should stop at? Or, as long as they’re relevant and not overdone, are you okay? I kind of hold to 4 instances of main keyword(s) for content optimization, but is there any sort of loose rule like that for linking?

Thanks again – really informative post!

By: Making Money Blogging

Making Money Blogging — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:46:55 +0000

Hello,

Out going links CAN be helpful, and they can also hurt your sites performance. It’s different for each case, however, an example of links being helpfull, is I buld portal directories sometimes. It’s purpose is to snag more rankings for related keywords. On every page of the directory (of which there are 20-75 pgs) there will be 15 to 20 links andevery link has a two sentence description.

The links are ONLY to high pr authority sites related to the keyword. So…
with more than 300 links out going, you’d think it would be terrible. You know what, there’s not one bit of difference than if I make every link no follow.

The portal always is indexed and does what it’s supposed to. Of course, for that purpose, it not only makes sense, but is relevent to the goal of a directory.

By: Leo

Leo — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:26:21 +0000

No worries…and I understand what you are saying about proof. My conundrum is that if I were to “show” an example, then I would put my site at risk, ya know?

By: Stan

Stan — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:47:28 +0000

OK thanks. I undertand this isn’t the normal “make money online” blog but I assumed you were still trying to get traffic to it. The writing you do here must take a long time so I thought you would want to get some sort of return. I was just hoping that this blog itself would be proof of what you say about linking out. Not that I don’t believe you it’s just that I like to see real proof if it is available. I have read almost every one of your posts and definitely learned a thing or two. Thank you for putting it all out for us to read.

By: Leo

Leo — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:19:32 +0000

Hey Stan, just wanted to clarify something here….this blog is nothing more than a vanity blog and I haven’t really even tried to optimize for even one keyword…I haven’t done a link campaign with this site….yada, yada, yada…in fact, if you notice, I barely post on this blog because frankly, it is more of an outlet for me and nothing more. Take the information at face value. If it is worth something to you, use it. If you don’t believe it, test it and come up with your own opinion. Personally, I am not trying to win over fans…this blog didn’t have the purpose of breaking into the make money niche and those that read my rants kind of know it. If you want to know where my real money comes from, it is primarily in the alternative health niche.

By: Stan

Stan — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:03:09 +0000

Ok so, I have read tons of your posts and am up to this one. You have now been posting for 1 year and you say that linking out is good (which you do all over the place). I wanted to see if it has been working for you and so I went to compete.com (which I found from you) to see what your traffic is. I was disappointed in what I found traffic wise for your site. I would have thought / hoped it would be more. I had hoped you were getting tons of traffic and that would have really convinced me that linking out is good. But I am not 100% convinced even though I know that 1 year isn’t that long for a blog.

By: Ion

Ion — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:09:28 +0000

Awesome post, really good info. I found your site on Justin's SEO blog. I'll definitely become one of your subscribers.

Ion

By: Interview Questions

Interview Questions — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:20:07 +0000

Excellent excellent article, very helpful, I have wondered for many weeks now, the effect of linking to other sites have on my rankings/PR etc, because the way my site works (forum) alot of people put links to other sites, whether its promoting themselves or sourcing an article.