11 Mar All about Link Juice and How to Stop it from Being Leaked
If you have been in the SEO industry for quite some time now, you must have heard and would still remember the mighty toolbar PageRank. It was a dream come true for webmasters to see the bar in all green because it was a signal that the page was fit for higher organic ranking.
The working behind PageRank is that websites that receive the most links from other websites are the ones that users are likely to find in the organic search results. Google stopped providing support for the toolbar in 2016. Five years later in 2021, several things collectively decide the fate of a website in SERP. The value of links to and from a website however remained unchanged, and SEOs believe PageRank still holds a powerful position in the search giant’s ranking algorithms that evolved and became more complex over time.
Summed up, when it comes to higher search ranking, link juice or link equity is a powerful decision maker and it’ll probably be so for many years to come. In this article, we will talk about the different aspects of link juice, and how to use it for positive SEO outcomes.
Content
- What is link juice?
- Determining factors for link juice
- The value of link juice
- How link juice works
- Ways to check link juice
- How to prevent losing link juice
What is link juice?
Also known as link equity, link juice is one of the powerful ranking factors that determine a web page’s fate on SERP (search engine results pages). It indicates the equity (value) that passes through one link to another. The value could pass through either within a website or to another website.
Determining factors for link juice
The quality of link juice depends on several factors
- Relevance – Closely connected links build relevance. For example, a link coming from a windshield repairing company’s website to a website dedicated to geography will probably not be useful.
- Authority – Link coming from a webpage/site that is not indexed or if its domain authority is low, then it is likely that link juice won’t pass from it.
- Anchor text – Anchor text should look natural. Inappropriate anchor text distribution can make Google slap a link penalty. Exact match keywords anchor text should be ignored. You can follow partial keyword anchor text but with caution. We’ll cover a separate article on it.
The HTTP status of a web page, the location, and the number of links also help decide the appropriate distribution of link juice.
Benefits of link juice
A good link profile is essential to increase a web page’s chances to appear more frequently in search results. In other words, search engines usually favor a website that enjoys high-quality link equity. A higher ranking means more traffic, which means more leads and chances of making sales.
How link juice works?
The working behind link juice is simple. When a link directs to a page, it carries its domain authority, relevance, and other important quality factors. If a web page gets a higher number of links from high-quality sources, it is likely to rank higher. So, it is always beneficial for a site to attract high-quality links and distribute internal links appropriately. When it comes to link juice, it is also important to understand that certain links would never pass the juice. Nofollow links, paid links, links from pages not indexed yet (as we mentioned above), links from pages with irrelevant content, etc., are not going to be helpful.
Ways to check link juice
You can use popular SEO tools like SEMRush, Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, etc. to judge the quality of links. By looking at metrics like estimated monthly visits, backlinks, domain age, domain authority, etc., a link’s worth can be checked.
How to attract link juice and stop losing it
- Create great content to obtain links from authority sources
For your site to obtain high-quality links, and improve its link profile in the process, it is highly needed that your website has useful content that they will find tempting enough to link to. Using SEO topic cluster as part of your content creation effort is helpful to attract authority links from relevant sites. Also, writing about original experiments, creating high-quality infographics, and outreach activities, and being active and engaged in platforms where it makes sense for your site, helps build a powerful link profile.
- Optimize your internal link building strategy
External links pass link juice to a page within your site. Then, links on the page will pass the equity to the internally linked pages. A good internal link-building structure is important to follow as it strengthens a website’s navigation, distributes page authority properly, and provides clear visibility for search spiders as to where to go and why. Create a lot of valuable content that appropriately matches your business’s tone and purpose, then explore natural opportunities to link one page to another. Make sure you are using do-follow links and also do not link everywhere. While there’s no common answer as to how much is too much, you should still follow your heart’s call and stick to a number you think is appropriate.
More –
- Regularly check high-performing pages and see if you can improve the existing content and create a new link opportunity within your website.
- Using manipulative strategies won’t work. Also, try to avoid links from low performing and harmful sources
- Find broken links and fix them
Good link juice for better organic rankings. Start with a FREE report!
Getting high-quality link juice consistently is not easy and it involves dedicated focus and effective utilization of resources. If you are looking to improve your business site’s link equity so that it eventually drives targeted traffic and sales, it is highly recommended you seek a professional’s help. At NUUN Digital, we help companies with comprehensive SEO services and one part of the job is to make sure that link equity passes flawlessly across their entire website.
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