External Linking
External linking is the practice of including links to other websites within your content. These links help search engines understand the context of the page, as well as provide a good user experience. External linking to high-quality sources may help boost ‘E-A-T’ (expertise, authority, & trustworthiness) in the ‘eyes’ of search engines and build topical authority for your website.
Below, we’ve compiled key takeaways relating to external linking best practices from Google’s ongoing SEO Office Hours sessions.
For more on optimizing your website’s links for search engines check out our additional resources:
5 Internal Linking Strategies to Boost SEO and Drive Organic Traffic.
External Link Signals Are Only Passed Between Domains & Subdomains via Internal Linking
Signals from your external links can be passed via internal linking between a domain and its subdomains. These signals aren’t shared automatically to the main domain if someone links to your sub-domain, for example.
Google Doesn’t Take Links Shared on Social Media Into Account
Links shared on social media are automatically nofollowed.
No Issue Including Duplicate Links on the Same Page
John says that including the same link twice on a page is fine. This may be necessary for sites that include footnotes at the bottom of a page as well as in body content.
Image Credit Links Are Treated as Regular Backlinks
Image credit links carry the same weight as any other links and are seen as regular backlinks by Google.
Links in PDFs are Followed But Don’t Pass Any Signals
Google follows links in PDFs but doesn’t pass any signals through these links.
Guest Post Links Should Be Nofollowed
John recommends having rel=nofollow on the links in guest posts.
Website Developer Links are Ignored by Google
Google ignores website developer links in a footer regardless of whether they are followed.
No Need to Nofollow Links Between Same Company on Different Domains
Links between separate parts of the same business on different domains don’t need to be nofollowed e.g. a link from your blog to your e-commerce site on a different domain.
Add Links to Site Footer That Are Useful for Users Not Google
John suggests ten as an ok number of links to have in a site footer. There is no absolute number but it is worth looking at how these links are used to make sure they are for the user’s benefit and not search engine’s. Long anchor text for these links could look like keyword stuffing.
Links Not Visible By Default Will Be Crawled
Links hidden behind tabs will be crawled in the same way as other hidden content.