There has been a lot of discussion about the use of external linking. Does positioning or serving links to resources and other websites serve a purpose in the eyes of Google? The simple answer is “simply yes”. Without more, in the eyes of the search engine, your content is richer if it references external resources. But as with SEO, simplicity doesn’t exist, so let’s try to break down the use of links further.
The first thing you need to know if you’re new to this is that there are two ways to link to external resources. The first one requires no action, just place a link to the site and that’s it. The second, called “nofollow”, involves adding a tag to the link that roughly tells Google not to follow that link.
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Examples of uses for external linking
When to use nofollow links?
As always, it depends on the project, as it’s not the same for a news outlet as it is for a blog or an e-commerce site. But generally, “nofollow” links are recommended when the site you’re linking to is of low or poor quality, a common example is if you’re linking to shops and offers. It’s common for affiliate niches to use nofollow for Amazon offers.
The same applies to sites with which you exchange links and are of different topics, it’s common to see links in the footer of, for example, template designers, if they’re not in “nofollow” they’re doing themselves a disservice in terms of positioning. Obviously, the use of these types of links goes beyond just this basic concept, they’re also used for internal linking, but that’s another story.
When to use follow links?
As I said at the beginning, to use “follow” links, technically you don’t have to do anything, just link and that’s it. However, you need to do it coherently, as if you overuse this type of link, you risk Google considering your project as SPAM. This happened to several online newspapers that abused the sale of “follow” links.
In general, I recommend using natural or follow links whenever it’s necessary to give credibility to the text or complement it with additional information. For example, you can read my post about Google Discover and see that I link to Agencia SEO without any issues.
Best practices for follow links
- Link to authoritative sources.
- Use sources and resources that add value to your text or reinforce the argument.
- Work on your anchor text to help Google better identify what you’re linking to.
Does using follow links help with my website’s SEO?
Taking into account everything above, it’s easy to see that linking to external websites and resources does help your project be better seen by Google. In fact, it’s something that Mountain View’s company has hinted at on more than one occasion, without shouting it from the rooftops.
Ultimately, what you’re doing is telling Googlebot that the site you’re referencing also talks about your content, or simply that you’ve taken part of their text to quote it in yours. Links are today the greatest credential for a website, and that’s why it’s logical that Google likes it when sites link to each other to give credibility to the content. Obviously, external linking must be done coherently.
Links still play a crucial role in a project, don’t be afraid to link to other sites.
Never be afraid to place links to sites that can reinforce the topic you’re working on. Don’t add nofollow to your competitors if the content is good or simply adds value, just because they’re competition; in reality, by doing so, you’re harming yourself and your content. Quoting Luis M. Villanueva: “SEO is much more than just placing H1 and H2 tags correctly”, it’s a larger strategy that involves many parts, and link building is key.
If you want to see more about the topic, I’ll leave you with this video from John Mueller, where he talks about the topic in the #AskGoogleWebmasters series; although it’s a bit ambiguous and doesn’t go too deep, you can read between the lines that you should always think about your site’s visitors. Does the link benefit them? If the answer is yes, then you have the answer to whether or not you should include that link.
Bonus for nofollow links
As always, I don’t want to close the text without an extra help. In this case, I want to help you make external linking easier, if you use the Rank Math SEO plugin, you can configure some links as “nofollow” automatically. This is useful if you work with affiliate links or if you’re linking to positive sites for your audience but that, in Google’s eyes, have a lot of Thin Content.
To do this, you need to follow these simple steps:
- Go to general settings.
- In the Links section, scroll down to find “Nofollow domains”.
- Place all the domains you want to automatically set as nofollow for Google there.
Any questions or suggestions, the comments are open for us to discuss and clarify doubts. Don’t forget to share this post if you found it interesting, and if you’re already citing my content with a link, karma will thank you ad eternum. By the way, below you have the stars which is a good way to tell me if you liked this text or not ?.