What are external links?

How Do External Links Affect SEO?

External links serve several important purposes as a part of a holistic SEO strategy.

User Experience

While user experience isn’t what constitutes a ranking factor on its own, it is still extremely valuable to take both user experience and search algorithms into consideration when creating blog content. If you only consider the concrete signals the algorithm assesses, rather than value and usability from a reader standpoint, the overall SEO value of the content is not as complete. Ultimately the goal of the Google algorithm is to curate content that is most useful to readers. The specific ranking signals used by the algorithm may change, but that underlying goal of serving searchers will not. Therefore, if you create content with user experience as a priority, you are more likely to create something of lasting value that is less likely to lose equity when the algorithm changes. 

External links contribute to user experience by providing the reader with easy access to useful supporting information. For example, in an article about how to fill out a tax return, it would be very useful to the reader if links to the appropriate tax forms on the IRS website were included. Rather than having to seek out that additional information independently (potentially through additional searches), or having to scroll down to a source list at the bottom of the page, the reader can simply click on the hyperlink in context, which ideally should be attached to the most relevant and descriptive anchor text. 

Source Citation

Source citation is another component of external links’ SEO value. External links are a means of citing your sources in a user-friendly way that does not necessitate the addition of a source list at the bottom of the page. It is important to cite your sources because it lends to the credibility of any claims you are making, as well as the credibility of your website as a whole. 

By associating yourself with other trusted experts and authoritative websites, you can make your own site and its content appear trustworthy and credible by proximity. Of course, the links you are able to earn organically are an even more powerful signal, but the relationship is still the same: citations express trust and confidence in the content of another site. When you point search engines to that content, you create deeper associations of relevance, accuracy, and quality.

And of course, citing your sources helps you avoid potential plagiarism issues, and gives all due credit to other creators and experts. For that reason alone, almost no website should be entirely free of external links.

Authority Building

When you link to relevant and authoritative content, it can reflect well on your own website’s authority and reliability. Ideally, the content that you link to should be highly authoritative, such as pages on government and educational websites, or credible news publications. It is important to note, that while many people rely on domain authority (DA) to determine the authority of a website, it is not a perfect measurement tool, and doesn’t comprehensively quantify everything that contributes to the overall authority of a domain. 

Relevance can be even more important than authority. Relevance refers to how closely related the content of a linked page is to the topic being discussed. For maximum benefit, the linked content should ideally be highly relevant to the anchor text it is attached to. For example, if your anchor text is “groom your cat regularly,” a link to a page about proper grooming techniques for a cat would be very relevant, whereas a link to a page about popular cat toys would not. 

Relevant external links to credible, trustworthy sources in your content can make your own content appear similarly trustworthy, credible, and authoritative. Again, this relationship is even stronger with backlinks you earn from other sites, but the relationship between two linked sites is a powerful signal that flows both ways.

Link Neighborhood

“Link neighborhood” is a term that is not used as often as it once was in the field of SEO, however, it is a concept that is still applicable. A “link neighborhood” is an analogy that compares the network of websites that are linked with each other — in a single page, or across a domain — to a neighborhood. The theory is that just like the aesthetic and value of one house lends to the aesthetic and value of the whole neighborhood, the aesthetic and value of each individual website can similarly reflect on every other website in the network. 

Consider how you might blend external links to cite your sources, alongside internal links to your own content. If writing an article on tax laws, you might cite the IRS and a few news sources, then link internally to your own accounting software or even other blog posts you had written. The link neighborhood for your content is very authoritative here, sandwiched between the IRS and major media publishers. That is good company for your site, and the link neighborhood can confer value to your content as a result.

Just as peeling paint or criminal activity at one house may reflect poorly on the neighborhood, spammy, poor quality content on a website can reflect poorly on other websites that it is linked to. This is why both good quality external links and good quality link building is so important.