SEO Knowledge: External Link
What is an External Link
An External Link is when you link a page or post from your site to another page or post on a different site. You also use specific words to link with.
For example, these words will link to a page in Wikipedia:
Learn More About External Links
The Benefit of an External Link
When you create an external link on your page/post, it shows Google that you are adding additional references to your topic and also creates a balance of internal & external links.
When you externally link with certain words, this helps Google understand the relevancy of the URL you are linking to and thus helps with YOUR rankings.
Affiliate Links are NOT External Links
Contrary to what you may think, affiliate links are not considered external links as there is a monetization strategy to it.
How to Create an External Link
Highlight the text you wish to link and press the link icon within your editing toolbar. From there, type the full URL of the external link.
When creating an External Link, ensure you are doing the following:
- Have at least one external link in your page/posts
- Use relevant anchor text
- Have the link open in a new window (although I prefer to have it load in the same window)
Recent Comments
48
Hello Jay..Sorry... This is a bit of subject. But I have a few question regarding the affiliate links. How many affiliate links the most you would recommend for 1 post about 1200-1500 words? Can 5-6 affiliate links to the same source affect the page ranking? Or if these 5-6 affiliate links are to the different sites like post about 5-6 best products from different sellers.
And should the affiliate links be opened in a new window?
Thank you very much for your help in advance.
Tanya
Hi Tanya,
What I would do is only have one link at the bottom and then once the post is ranking on 1st page, then add up to 3 affiliate links.
Just what I needed to learn! Thanks, Jay.
Does the link have to be to Wikipedia, or can you link to another source (website) that you used in your post?
Great. To be a bit more specific: I just finished researching a topic that I will rewrite in my own words, but at the end was going to put an external link with the source URL, which is a specific website. So that's okay?
Does Google recommend that bloggers put external links in their posts? Does this help get the posts indexed better? I’ve been noticing that the “2nd site” created by WA outranks my main site, is it because I’m not linking to any external sites?
Hi Marshall,
Google won't come right out and say that it is a ranking metric, but there have been enough studies to prove that it is.
For example:
https://www.rebootonline.com/blog/long-term-outgoing-link-experiment/
As a fellow SEO, I recommend you read that in its entirety.
Thanks for the source link. I think you’re right, sometimes they want to see that you’re not just trying to monetize but rather they want us to show that we are experts in a niche and they do rank sites higher who link out to relevant sources. Arg, gotta go back and link out now, but happy to do so. Thanks Jay!
Yes, where there's a relevant topic on Wikipedia, I will often link to it. I believe it increases your authority.
However, I'll always open the external link in a new page as I don't want visitors accidentally leaving my site and relying on them using the browser's back arrow to return to it.
I'll open in the same window for internal links only.
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Thank you, Jay.