Google Page Rank: Outbound Linking is Good News

Whenever I read articles on Triond, Bukisa, Xomba, and other publishing sites that operate in the same manner, I am amazed that people writing articles miss out on the most obvious links they could include in their articles to make them more interesting, to make following up on a theme more easy for the reader (which I consider common courtesy toward the reader who wants to know more), and to improve your Google Page Rank. Because, yes, outbound links may improve your ranking.

Some of you may believe that outbound links will add little if nothing to your ranking and that those links are inserted at the expense of inbound links. The arguments run along two lines: on one hand that outbound links drain your Google Page Rank (by somehow metaphysically jumping to other pages, I suppose); and on the other hand that the massive reciprocity of all those sites you linked to will result in enough inbound links to cause Google to think you're using magical black hat techniques.

Neither of these arguments holds water.

First, outbound links do not somehow inexplicably cancel out the good that inbound links do to your articles. Lets suppose that the Google Page Rank of Socyberty is at 4 and you are writing an article for that site containing external links. This will neither affect nor actually harm Socyberty's Page Rank. It might help the PR of another site (for example Quazen), but not at the expense of Socyberty. The amount of Page Rank oxygen you're blowing into a site you link to is equal to Socyberty's PR divided by the number of outbound links on all Socyberty. The amount of oxygen going out is minimal as per link, as there are thousands in all the articles, but the sum of all oxygen going out is always equal to the total Page Rank; it cant go into the negative, draining Page Rank out. What goes out to individual sites is marginal, but it is a little like positive karma. As with plants, the oxygen given off by a site is not harmful to its source.

This logic applies to internal links, too, and the link oxygen they carry between Socybertys pages.

Second, the argument that if you have outbound links resulting in a flood of reciprocal links will make Google think you're using nefarious tactics has little truth to it, too. First of all, you should be linking out to sites that are relevant to your articles theme. If you are very lucky, these sites might give you a back link in return, and that will only improve your ranking. If you're linking to good, non-spam, non-link farm sites, reciprocal inbound links will not harm your Page Rank. The incoming karma is just as marginal as the one you give out, but all those bits and pieces will add up over time.

Make sure your outbound links don't cause problems. Choose links that are relevant to your article, and keep the outbound links spread throughout the body of the article. Don't build an interminable links list full of outbound links because such are not well received by Google.

If your article is considered a useful provider of content, the more high-quality and relevant outbound links will help you. While it may seem counter-intuitive to be giving other sites extra exposure, the truth is that you will profit from wisely chosen links. Apart from using inbound links (Socyberty to Socyberty, Bukisa to Bukisa, etc.), using outbound links (Socyberty to Quazen, Socyberty to Bukisa, etc.) will profit all concerned.

This is why you will find that my articles always contain links not only to my own articles that are relevant, but often to other writers articles and outside sources, if available, relevant, and worth reading.

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