Link Building: The Ingredients of Link Juice
Link Juice is probably one of the most examples of search engine optimization jargon but, what is it? Trying to learn about SEO, I can see a lot of people getting confused when the “link juice” phrase keeps coming up out proper explanation.
Link juice basically refers to the quality and how beneficial a link on a certain site would be if you were able to obtain a link from that source. Since high quality links are extremely important in SEO and search engine rankings in general, the more link juice a page passes the better the link will be. Below is what factors into the juiciness:
1. Anchor Text – Does the page allow you to link to your site with a keyword rather than just a URL? If so there is more juice in that link. The search engines use the keyword to confirm what your URL relates to and helps you to rank of that keyword and other queries related to that phrase.
2. Authority – Is the site authoritative in its niche? Do people look for guidance from the site in the particular industry? If so, +1 juiciness point.
3. Page Relevance – The more related the page and page title is to your site the better as far as link quality. If you have a technology based company, a link from The Cake Factory isn’t going to mean as much as a link from Tech Crunch.
4. Do-Followed – The link must be do-follow to pass any SEO power in terms of PR because search engines do not index no-follow links. But, no-follow links are important for search rankings as they portray a feel of natural link building.
5. Amount of Traffic – How many people are seeing the link and the site on a daily and monthly basis? This is somewhat in the same category as Authority.
6. Depth of Page – The deeper the page that link is on the juicier the link is. Search engine highly value deep linked pages. This may take some time to obtain until the page gets pushed deeper into the website as more pages are created.
7. Number of Outbound Links – How many links are on the page? The fewer the better. This is why guest blogging can be so valuable. Instead of being listed in some god-forsaken directory with 1,500 link on a page you can have 2 great outbound links on a page which is immensely more powerful because the juiciness of the links on is divided among all the outbound links on the page. The links your competitors can’t get are the most valuable.
8. Page Rank – Google’s tool for measure the link popularity of the websites is a great tool to measure the juiciness of a potential link. All the links on the page with then share the Page Rank for that specific page. So, if you can be one of only 3 links on a PR 7 page this would be extremely beneficial to your link building campaign.
Related articles
- HTML Anchor Links Explained (seohatch.com)
- Search Engine Ranking Factors 2011: Overview (seohatch.com)
Great post Corey.@andydalg
Link juice is a highly prized, but elusive nectar!
I say this from personal experience and suspect I’m not alone. A recent survey asked 350+ B2B marketers which SEO tactics they deployed.
It seems that using content to encourage natural linking is widespread. 61% of those surveyed did so and its perceived effectiveness is second only to keyword optimisation (25% and 44% respectively rate these as having the biggest single impact on their search performance; reciprocal linking is third on just 10%). Link baiting may be widespread but it’s by no means easy – attracting natural links in this way was cited as the single biggest SEO challenge faced.
If you have a moment, there’s one item on the list you shared that jumped out at me. Page Rank is listed as eighth most important factor and anchor text the first. Is it better then to have a well anchored link from a low Page Rank site than a less well anchored link from a high Page Rank site? Or is it best to view the items on the list as not mutually exclusive, i.e. a blend of reasonable performance across the board is better than high performance on one item only?
Thanks again -
P.S. If you’re interested in more detailed findings from the SEO survey above, highlights can be found here - http://www.circle-research.com/2011/b2b-research-techniques/b2b-seo-benchmarking-report-highlights/
Andrew
Thanks for the insight and comments. I think that the answer is somewhere between to the two.It depends on how related the site is to your niche in which you are receiving the link from. If you are a 'car parts' website getting a link from a PR7 cupcake blog may not be as beneficial as a link from a PR5 car magazine blog. But generally speaking, I think that higher ranked links are more juicy with niche relation weighted as well.
(for reference, this was a list and not a ranking order)
Cupcakes...the new bio-fuel perhaps? :o)
Thanks for the clarification Corey. Sounds like a blend of page rank and relevance is key.
Cheers,
Andrew
This is a great post on link juice. Any web page that follows such elements, then you do not miss to put a link on it.
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