A common question everyone unclearly asks is, “Are website backlinks or outbound links great for search engine ranking?” Some suggested that high quality backlinks inflict adverse effects on overall SEO ranking. At the same time, some say that linking to other websites is a full-proof way to do commendable in organic searches.
Additionally, every website needs to drive traffic - the more traffic, the better! And to accomplish this, you’re required to rank higher in SERP.
So, how to do that? Simple! - using Search Engine Optimization!
But, what if you’ve updated your content, added the target keywords, and did the technical SEO, but still, you aren’t ranking on search engines? Why? Because there’s one more critical area you must focus on, i.e., building high quality backlinks!
Worried about how to get it done? What exactly are the high DA backlinks? Is every backlink a good backlink? Through this article, find the answers to all these questions, and we’ll also debunk the fact that “linking to websites negatively affects the search engine rankings” and how backlink building SEO services can help you. So, continue to read on!
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So the actual question is, “Does linking to third-party websites help accelerate SEO efforts? The answer is “Yes.”
Now, in the following section, we will deeply understand what linking to a website really means and why and how to make the best of your SEO link building.
So high quality backlinks, external links, and linking to websites is a process where you put links to another website within your website copy or another content base. Building external links for SEO is done when there is a need to verify the facts (suppose you put critical terms like “history of cricket” on your website and link it to Wikipedia to bring comprehensive detail to that term for the user), present backup sources, or promote some third-party endeavors.
If we talk about Google, the genius wants people to find the most accurate and authoritative information-based websites with each and every search query. So when you link websites to other third-party websites, according to Google, you provide value-added and relevant information to the end-users.
Your website is perceived to be trusted, reliable, and authoritative. This ultimately improves your scope for improving overall visibility and organic search results for your business.
There exist a number of different types of high authority backlinks, and understanding them can help you generate backlinks to your website or create backlinks for websites.
These hyperlink types are without extra attributes -i.e., standard hyperlinks. These links tell search engines like Google to hand over trust and authority to a website being linked to.
Important Note: There’s no “follow” link attribute, as any type of link is considered “do follow” unless an attribute is supplemented.
This is how a “follow” backlink looks like in HTML code:
When you link to high authority websites, you’re explicitly authenticating for it and using a “follow” link as the default. But in a few cases, you might not wish to do that.
For instance, you might require to link to a contender's web page for text but don’t wish to give them any type of authority automatically. Or assume you wish to link to high authority websites in your text.
Nofollow links make use of the rel=”nofollow” attribute to tell search engines like Google and other search engines that they must not hand over the authority.
This is how a “Nofollow” link looks like in HTML code:
Remember that search engines like Google handles the “nofollow” attribute like a hint, even so. Therefore, Google will finally decide whether or not to give the authority via that link.
When money, a product, or a service is provided in return for a link, the rel=” sponsored” link attribute must be supplemented.
These types of links help search engines like Google recognize sponsored or paid links:
UGC stands for “User-generated Content” links, which allows Google to recognize which links have been created by users or consumers.
This lets webmasters mention that they don’t journalistically promote particular website links. for example, the links in forum posts, blog comments, etc.
This is what UGC backlinks look like:
Editorial backlinks or editorially placed backlinks are the links you earn naturally without being asked.
Let’s assume that high domain authority websites for backlinks to your blog are related to backlinks because they believe it’s an excellent resource for their readers. This will be an editorial backlink or editorially placed link.
Search engines value these types of website backlinks because they’re intended to improve UX instead of manipulating search engine algorithms.
Also known as link spam, refers to website backlinks meant for “manipulating rankings” in search engines like Google.
For example:
Involving in link spam might lead to a Google penalty, adversely impacting your search engine rankings.
If you’ve previously been involved in a link exchange, you must deny potentially dangerous website backlinks. I.e., requesting Google to ignore specific website backlinks to your website.
Pro Tip: Google suggests that you just deny website backlinks if you’ve paid for them or involved in a link exchange of any type.
You can make use of Backlink Audit to create a list of website backlinks you want to deny. Afterward, you can submit the disclaim file to Google’s disclaim tool once you submit your disavow request.
We’ll also distill how external linking to a website of third-party sources is a definite gain. But before that, let's find out the factors that need to be analyzed before external linking.
Google doesn’t red flag the outbound links, but it doesn’t mean you can link websites irrelevant to your business type. Thus, introspecting the following questions is needed for effective external linking for stimulating search engine rankings with Google analytics:
Question 1 - The handful of sites you plan to link to, will they make you look like a more thoughtful brand?
Question 2 - Are the outbound link websites you have searched for relevant to your business or niche type?
Question 3 - What is the status of your website’s ranking now?
Question 4 - Is the website you plan to link to authoritative and hosted with subject matter expertise?
Question 5 - What is the frequency of linking to authoritative websites in the past?
Question 6 - How strong is your website's authority and relevance in today's market?
Question 7 - Is your website information based or a pure e-commerce store?
Question 8 - On keeping SEO aside, decide whether doing third-party website linking will help enrich your visitors/audience.
External linking to a website of third-party sources is essential for hundreds of reasons. We won’t take your time to enlist those hundreds of reasons as we’ve enlisted the 4 major ones.
When you include high quality backlinks sites to third-party websites of high authority and name in the process, by doing so, your brand awareness is improved in the eyes of search engines and the target audiences.
Since people today don’t have time to explore ten different websites to solve their queries so, by providing shortcut links to those users on your website, you can save their time and sketch your image as a reliable, authoritative, and subject-matter expert brand.
By creating high authority backlinks or outbound links, you create an influential association with other reputed companies, websites, bloggers, and journalists. When you endorse other websites’ efforts on your site, you will be endorsed, too, in the form of effective backlinks. The more high authority backlinks you score, the more will be your SERPs ranking.
The vital part - Those high DA backlinks created will not help you get direct traffic (as only a tiny percentage of public taps on those backlinks), but the ranking you will get from those high domain authority links will be the real win.
You’ve got no idea how your single link can improve your SEO game. By putting the correct external links, the latest Google algorithm update can learn a lot about your website; with a single linking, the search engine crawlers will know:
When you put authority backlinks to high-authority third-party sites or pages, you win the search engine's trust regarding “that yes, you are a legitimate player of the industry you are in ''. Thus, you get great relevance in ranking high in the SERP.
Doesn’t matter how exceptional a website you plan to make; there would still be a bunch of readers who won’t find your website’s information or content adequate. And it is natural. Since you can’t make your website a global depository, that is why you need to leverage the “power of high authority backlinks.”
The high quality backlinks sites will make your website a more valuable and scalable resource as linking will add on to make your website experience better and more rewarding for the visitors. Practicing the linking process will make you a valuable reference resource in your business niche.
For doing an effective hyperlinking to high-authority sites, you need to adhere to the following best external linking practices:
These high authority links drive people away to other third-party sites. To ensure your site doesn’t get abandoned entirely by the user, make sure your hyperlinks are prone to open in the new tab.
If your hyperlinks are opening in the same tab of your website, your readers will feel irritated as they would have to hit a “back” button to continue again on your site or especially has to do a right-click to open that link separately manually. It might happen that users out in irritation, won’t make efforts to continue on your website.
To make your hyperlinks open in a new tab:
By doing this simple thing, you will get excellent traction and engagement from your end users.
This is a general rule of life, and you cannot have too many good things. Everything beyond the limit is just detrimental. Water is good for the body, but drinking 4 gallons of water, thinking it will be healthy, isn’t how things work.
Similarly, you can’t put plenty of high domain authority links on your site. While posting plenty of links, you will experience two bad things - first, you will drive away your potential users to other sites, and second, search engines will look at you like a website that’s circulating spammy links to manipulate the search results.
Though there is yet to be a clear understanding of the number of high DA backlinks, the key is to keep only the links that could help and support your users' reading time.
Make sure your high domain authority backlinks are:
Backlink building should be organic rather than forced. When you do your writing part right, there will be ample opportunity to insert the relevant links.
In 2016, Google imposed penalties on websites that contained unnatural or irrelevant external links. Such offending websites' webmasters were asked to remove the irrelevant links or put no-follow tags on such links.
Firstly write the entire copy on the subject or topic you want to, in parity with your business offerings. There, if you need to improve user experience design, look for the content fragments and link them to the websites that have better and more detailed information about that fragment or the essence of the topic. You can use high domain authority links if your content needs powerful backup sources to support your writing statements.
Too many mutual backlinks can be suspicious for search engines. Earlier, many websites were putting this practice of supporting mutual backlinks in great quantity to empower each other’s websites and increase their search engine rankings.
Ever since Google’s Panda update rolled out, it broke down the network of mutual backlinking promoting websites to prevent fake authority and fake rankings. Though businesses are still putting the use of this practice, if Google spots down too much of mutual backlinks, there will be negative consequences to such intended actions.
Even if you want to have mutual backlinks, ensure they are created naturally and not after carefully planning to fool the search engines. Misusing this practice will not only make you lose your ranking but also degrade your brand image. A professional link building agency like JanBask Digital Design will help you generate long-lasting and sustainable business growth.
Anchor text is a fragment of content you select to put a hyperlink on - high authority websites. Make sure to select an anchor text for the external link that is descriptive and sums up what to expect on another page.
You can choose your target keywords or other clear words that describe the third-party page well-off. Doing this practice will improve your website’s usability for search engines as well as the target audience.
Just like linking to authoritative and relevant websites can increase your brand value, similarly, if you opt for the poor resources fed and low-quality websites, blogs, comments, subreddits, and forums for linking, you will erode your business image.
Pro tip - Do not automatically allow the links in your comments section. If you do not want to choke your website with spammers, trollers, and self-promoting webmasters, make sure to manually monitor whatever is posted in the comments section - to maintain the integrity of your content and the image. Timely use an outbound link checker to ensure that all your links are the latest, resourceful, and aren’t broken ones.
If you are having difficulty determining the types of external links or sites for your website, you can take the help of Google’s related link tool. The tool helps you find high authority links to websites that are similar to your website type.
Inside the tool’s search bar, enter - “related: (your website name).” Upon entering this query, you will have a handful of website links that Google thinks are similar to your website type.
Checking websites for high authority backlinks could be helpful if you’re strategizing for a link-building campaign or conducting competitor analysis.
Initially, we’ll explain how to gain insights about your website’s backlink profile using tools such as GSC (Google Search Console).
However, you could not get insights related to other websites’ backlinks in a similar way.
Different reports include:
In the next section, we’ll explain how to analyze website backlinks.
Using Semrush’s “Backlink Analytics” tool, you can get extra insights about your website’s backlinks. You can also get information about your challenger’s website’s backlinks.
Begin by selecting a website or a particular URL you wish to review. Paste the URL into the search bar and click “Analyze.”
The fundamental metrics tracked include:
If you wish to see the complete report, click the blue no below each metric. You could simultaneously weigh up to 5 websites by adding their domain names.
Scroll to the bottom to find out how the websites compare to each other according to their “Backlink types,” “Link attributes,” “Referring domains categories,” and much more.
If required, it’s possible to export data to a PDF. Click on the “Export to PDF” option at the top-right corner. It is helpful when you wish to further analyze website backlinks or forward competitor analysis to a customer.
SEO connoisseurs have agreed that external links are a great source to get your webpage on Google search results. Search engines see these links as a fact that “yes, your website also is a relevant and high-authority resource for the end-users.”
By getting strong on external link-building games, you can easily pull up your keywords and search terms rankings high in the SERPs.
A marketing firm conducted a recent study to identify whether a website heading ahead with the external linking process can accelerate its SEO ranking game. They found out that, yes linking process does help in improving the SEO results, as with linking, Google gets to know whether your website is of high authority and standards or not.
As an experiment, a marketing firm created 10 websites with similar content bases and keywords (the content was similar but paraphrased so that plagiarism was avoided).
Half of the websites were left as it was, while the other half were inserted with well-researched and high domain authority links. On checking the results of these 10 websites, it was found that websites that were doing high authority backlinks to other websites ranked higher than those without this practice.
Though it is clear that external link building is an essential factor for facilitating the SEO cycle but, it must ensure that linking is done minding the above-mentioned best practices:
A recap of external linking best practices:
However, whether external linking to other websites is a direct way to fuel SEO rankings still needs to be seen. External link building indirectly supports your keyword ranking and search engine visibility. By following this practice, you can accelerate your ranking in some way or another.
1. What is an example of a website backlink?
Website backlinks are hyperlinks from one page to another. When another site connects to your website, you get a backlink from them. And when your website connects to another one, you give them a backlink.
2. What Types of Backlinks Are Valuable?
Amidst the different types of website backlinks, a few links hold more value as compared to others. I.e., you should focus on high quality backlinks. High quality website links are more powerful as compared to hundreds of poor-quality website links. Here are a few examples of different types of website backlinks that are valuable -
3. How many backlinks per month are good for SEO?
Often, a value of 60 to 100 is best, 40 to 50 is allowable, and less than 40 is not good.
4. Which is the most powerful type of backlink?
One of the most efficient website backlinks is those that are “do follow.” These types of links carry the SEO juice from the site that gives a backlink to the site that receives it.
5. Which backlink is the least important in SEO?
The worst type of backlinks in SEO is the “Tier 3” website backlinks. A search engine will penalize your site if you generate these types of backlinks. PPC ads, spam comments, and directories are Tier 3 website backlinks examples.
With this, we hope we’ve made you understand how external linking is crucial for positive SEO results. By using high authority links that are easy to navigate, convenient, and relevant for the users, you can definitely improve your rankings, build a solid brand image in the eyes of target groups, and allow search engines to vision you as a high-authority website.
Have we missed any external linking best practices? If yes, we would love to hear that in the comments below. Share what you feel and experience while employing the outbound linking practice.
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B
Fantastic blog post as always! I could use all these strategies for my blog.
T
Awesome link-building strategies. I’ve used almost all of them, and they work incredibly well.
R
This a comprehensive article! I’ve one question. Do social bookmarking links still work?
K
Can your backlink service recommend a good link analysis software program?
R
Enjoyed reading this post. I would like to ask your backlink services should we use business directory submissions as a part of the link building process? or is it counted as spam?
T
Can your best link building services explain how to search the authority websites related to our niche?