How Does Google View Outbound Links?

Talk to a number of webmasters and I`m sure you`llPRs,which is a strong indication they have that `vote of
find that while they love inbound links, (backlinks), theyconfidence` by being linked to by a lot of other
have an aversion to placing outbound links on theirwebmasters also. Linking out is not necessarily a bad
pages to other sites. The reasoning behind that is thatthing. There is little concrete evidence that outbound
they imagine that all outbound links will weaken theirlinks weaken your own PageRank. Nor can it be
position with the Search Engines, and have no value inproven that such links reduces rank position in search
them. But, does that really make any sense? Googleengines.
and the other search engines are looking for a siteAs for the argument that outbound links send your
which has good content, and provides value to itsvaluable visitors to other sites, that has to be put in to
visitors.perspective. If yours is a site which relies on selling,
Now, if you have a blog, for example, and write a postthen if you must, link to sites which don`t sell, such as
about Disneyland in Paris, what better authority site toWikipedia, or government information sites. If you
link to than DisneylandParis? If visitors are interestedbenefit from better placings by the search engines
enough to read your post then it may be safe tobecause of the proper use of outbound links-resulting
assume they`d like some further information about thein more visitors to your site-the loss of a few visitors
place itself, from the actual company which runsto other sites is a small price to pay. In other words,
Disneyland in Paris.you stand to gain more than you lose.
Similarly, if you have a site discussing gardening youIf you really are worried about weakening your own
might link to a site which is a recognized authority onpage rank then consider using 'Nofollow' in your links
the subject of gardening. A site on weather featureswhich should stop the indexing robot from following
might link to Wikipedia and so on. In other words, youthem. Don`t haphazardly link to other sites. Make sure
are giving your visitors the opportunity to look at otherthe anchor text is relevant to your topic, and link to
sites which are viewed by many as an `authority` ongood authority sites. Try to think about what will benefit
the topic. You are helping them, thus providing ayour visitors, and hopefully you`ll be rewarded with
service, or something that may be of value to them.better rankings in the search engines.
These sites you will be linking to will probably have high