Just in case you've forgotten, an outbound
link is a url that you have on your site that
points to another website.
In today's Google PR obsessed Internet world,
everyone is completely focusing on getting in
bound links to your site. While you should
always be on a mission to get more sites to
link to yours, you must not forget their polar
opposites.
Remember, by having outbound links from your
site, you are in essence "voting" for the site
you link to. This is part of the entire
ranking algorithm process for all the search
engines. The idea is, that if two sites are
similar in content and design, a site with
more links pointing to it would be considered
more important by the search engine.
So then, why should you help out any other
site? Actually, by carefully linking to other
relevant sites, you are increasing the
relevancy of your own site.
Pretend I have a pizza shop, and I am located
in Anywhere, USA. It's a typical site that
displays types of pizza, store location,
hours, and coupons. I also know the power of
outbound linking. For this case, I am going to
link to 10 sites: Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little
Ceaser’s & Papa Johns. Next, I link to 6 sites
that are physically located in Anywhere, USA.
(And their physical addresses are listed on
their sites.)
Now, I will switch roles and view the site as
a search engine spider. I navigate through the
site, and determine that this site is about
pizza. Then I find a resource page and
discover some well-known links (Domino's,
Pizza Hut, Little Ceaser’s & Papa Johns - and
as the spider I know that these are major
players in the realm of pizza). Next, I find 6
links to sites located in Anywhere, USA.
So, as a happy spider leaving the site, I now
know that the site I just visited is about
pizza (site content and links to the major
players of the pizza industry), and that it is
located in Anywhere, USA.
Next, I visit one of the 6 sites listed as a
resource in Anywhere, USA. I find the local
address, and it has the same zip code as the
pizza site I was just at. Now I know how these
two sites are related to each other.
Taking into account the fact that this local
pizza shop has also linked to the major pizza
chains, as the spider, I am lead to believe
that this shop has relevancy to the zip code
of Anywhere, USA.
So, as the spider returns the information to
the database to be processed in the algorithm,
it has pre-sorted some search results based on
the links your site points to.
Another benefit of outbound linking is Geo
Targeting, or Local search. There is a lot of
speculation that local search is the next big
trend in Search Marketing. While only time
will tell, it won't hurt to have your physical
address listed on your website for those who
will be embracing local search.
As an experiment, I created a site with a very
unique url (to avoid the possibility of people
finding it by accident), and I made it only 1
page long. The only thing the page consisted
of were 80+ outbound links to relevant sites
in the SEO industry, tools, forums and some
tutorials. When the PageRank was first updated
for the site, it came out of the box with a PR
of 3. It has since fallen to a PR of 2 (now
that I’ve pointed a few sites to it!).
The whole point of this experiment was to see
how outbound links affect your own rankings of
your site. I was able to generate a PR of 2
based entirely on linking to authority sites
in the SEO industry. So, take the time to link
to some relevant sites, the big names (if
any), and enjoy the power of the easy,
outbound link.
Paul Bliss
www.seoforgoogle.com