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 Links to Other Pages May Help Google Understand the Context of a Page and Improve User Experience
Including external links to other pages can help Google to understand the context of a page a little bit, and may improve the user experience, but external links don’t impact rankings directly.
Google Doesn’t Select Homepages as the Most Important Page by Default
Google doesn’t automatically decide that the homepage is the most important page on a site. This is an effect often seen because Google’s signals indicate the homepage is important e.g. through internal linking and backlinks.
Links Can be Ignored Algorithmically and Manually by Google
Links can be ignored algorithmically and manually by the Web Spam Team when they are taking manual action on a site to block the site from passing PageRank.
Data in the New Search Console Links Report Will Differ From the Old One
The new GSC links report is calculated slightly differently so it’s normal to see some differences in data from the old report. The new report is more accurate.
Google Will Ignore Links You Submit to Directories
Google wants links to be natural recommendations from people to other sites, so links to your site that you submit to directories will be ignored.
Image Tags Without A Href Elements Aren’t Treated as Links
For an image to be considered as a link by Google, it needs to have an ‘a’ tag and href element. Using an img tag to point to an image on another site, for example, is not seen as a link.
Google Can Ignore UTM Tracking Parameters in URLs
For URLs with UTM tracking parameters, Google will ignore the parameter and focus on the primary URL instead. Google will try to crawl UTM parameter URLs if they are linked to externally though, so use the parameter handling tool in GSC or the canonical tag in this instance.
Google Differentiates Domains Even With Similar Names & Linking Profiles
If there are two domains with similar names, Google will be able to differentiate them even if they have similar linking profiles. So the algorithms won’t start to favour a site that is copying your domain and linking strategy, for example.
Avoid Linking Between Your Own Sites Unless Relevant to Avoid Manual Action
Make sure you only have relevant links between the sites you own, otherwise the Google manual action team could investigate your sites for implementing link exchange tactics.
Google Will Index Pages Blocked in Robots.txt if They’re Linked To
If you block a page in robots.txt but someone links to it, then the page could still be indexed without any content as Google will have been blocked from seeing it. Use the noindex tag for these pages instead.