Outbound Links on the Home Page: Good Thing or Bad Thing?

[mjtaylor]

We have been discussing whether outbound links drain PR on another thread. The real issue for me is whether or not oubound links on a home page have a greater value and are worth the drain.

So, let's assume for a moment, that outbound links *do* leak some PR.
My question is: does the benefit of say, 2-3 outbound links to authority sites outweigh the drain. I believe they do.

My theory goes: Google loves outbound links and would prefer that a web visitor find a link on your site than return to the SERPs for the same term they used to find you.

So, a site that is #10 for red widgets and then adds links to the top 2 sites for that term could experience a boost in ranking on that term.

What's your experience on the matter?

Thanks, MJ

[martty]

While I do not believe that there is such a thing as PR leak (that was done to death in the other thread), given that a Googler has hinted at outgoing links somehow being factored into what we see on the toolbar PR, then it may be risky???? See the quote I posted: http://www.webproworld.com/343347-post11.html

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by martty

While I do not believe that there is such a thing as PR leak (that was done to death in the other thread), given that a Googler has hinted at outgoing links somehow being factored into what we see on the toolbar PR, then it may be risky???? See the quote I posted: http://www.webproworld.com/343347-post11.html

A Google spokesman said in a statement: "Values in the Google Toolbar can fluctuate for a number of normal reasons, including changes in how we crawl or index the web, or changes in the link structure of the web itself."
The PageRank could be updated by Google to "to incorporate not only our view on the backlinks to a page or site, but also to incorporate our opinion of the forward links for a site".

And so even if that's true ... and I would like to see it printed somewhere else ... what we are talking about here are links out to authority sites ... well, at least that's what I want to talk about ...

[cass-hacks]

When in doubt, go for value added for the visitor and likely Google's algos will benefit you one way or another.

That's what I use to decide what to do when I don't have a clue.

That said, I am not sure Google makes much of a distinction between entrance/home pages and any other page of a site so I am not sure the distinction regarding "home page" is necessary.

I know in the past, one's entrance/home page received the most visits of almost any other page of a given site but with search engines leading more people to more internal pages directly, I don't think one's entrance page, from a search engine point of view, is as important as it used to be.

But, my experience is that I have no experience with outbound links on home pages because almost all the entrance pages of all the sites I have built or work with are about the site itself and don't really have much of a chance to build relevant content to support relevant links out.

Internally, that is a totally different matter as I will link to other sites as references to whatever is being discussed on a given page but on the entrance page, the only relevant links would be to other pages of the site itself. Any outbound links on the entrance page, for me, would more than likely be charities or advertising which are nofollow'ed anyway and so ignored.

I know, I'm no help.

[vinay11111]

Accordign to current PR update it surely effects

[Tubby]

I was slowly coming to think google liked outgoing links to minor pages it would never have found without my help.

My users like them. ( I realy do not even pretend to understand Google. . I just watch with confused interest.}

[ctabuk]

I probably have more outbound links on my main site than probably any other poster in WPW. That is quite a sweeping statement. But Google seems to love it and has kept me top for over 7 years.
But they are 'relative' one link alone has over 20,000 additional links out, and from those 20,000 you could probably keep going for a year. I have every .gov virtually on the planet.
From Housing Law in the UK to a tiny Council on Sark in the Channel Isles.

It works for me. And I don't give a tinkers for so called PR leakage.

This is just a tiny fraction
http://www.counciltenantsmortgages.c...-uk-links.html

One even has an error page - whoops - but even that links out

[crankydave]

I'm not a fan of linking to external sites from the homepage for a variety of reasons.

The first and obvious one is that I care more about what my visitors would think and not Google.

Your homepage can arguably be the most important page on a site. I don't wan't to dilute it with anything other than links and information that pertains directly to my site.

I also don't like the idea of "inviting" my visitors to leave from my homepage. They may not come back.

If the resources that are linked to are indeed authority sites, related to your own, you are helping them outrank you from what could be your most powerful page. Additionally, you could be harming the performance of your deeper pages.

This being said, providing good informational pages within your site and providing a link to a resource for additional information for the sake of your visitors is a good thing.

If you want to consider what the SE's think about, then the thing to think about is whether or not a link to an authority site strictly affects the page on which it resides or the site as a whole.

Dave

[virtualtraveller]

Firstly, losing PR value as a possible result of OBLs on your homepage doesn't necessarily translate to lower SERPs, I think it's universally agreed now that PR shows less relevance to the algo rating of your site.

I've seen a site with dozens of OBLs on homepage, steadily holding its PR6 despite everyone else devalued in the recent update. I've seen other sites participating in a nasty link exchange network of flashing buttons neatly arranged at the foot of their homepage, still ranking well despite the obvious link-farm network.

Personally I avoid this but do include some obls on my homepage, like sponsored ads (nothing wrong with that) but avoid whole lists of obvious link exchanges.

The one certain thing to consider is that obls on a page drain the PR that percolates down through your site, what ever PR is on the page has to be shared by all links on a page, therefore the more there are the lower the PR within your site. If you are a PR5 with a sensible number of links then the next level pages will all be 4, if you've SEOd it to death and given away a lot of your PR to OBLs then expect deep pages to be PR3 or even 2.

I also agree that Google respects a site that is leading the reader to other resources on the net and for this reason will always add one or two arb links to external sites at the bottom of content - without getting links in return from them.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by virtualtraveller

I also agree that Google respects a site that is leading the reader to other resources on the net and for this reason will always add one or two arb links to external sites at the bottom of content - without getting links in return from them.

Yes, exactly my thinking ... actually I link out contextually to a few sites from my right side bar, sites that I truly believe offer value to the web visitor, and that I consider to be authority sites in my niche, and no I don't ask for a link back ...

I think the PR drain is negligible ...

Cheers, MJ

[dartman]

Assuming an obl to an authority type site would you speculate on any
difference if the obl is from the index page or an internal page?

[mjtaylor]

I would expect that the impact will be greatest on the page where the links are outbound. So, for example, when I wrote an article on copywriting a few months back, I included a couple of links to authority sites on seo copywriting on the article page.