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How To Check & Maintain Outbound Links

In previous articles we've explained the importance of anchor text in your inbound links and its effects on your page rank. But did you know that anchor text of your outbound links on the page can have the same effect?

An outbound links' anchor text affects a page's search engine ranking almost as much as inbound links' anchor text.

The anchor text of your page's inbound links is probably the most important factor in search engine rankings for targeted keywords. For example, if "dog training" is in the anchor text of a link to a web page, that web page can appear in Google's results for "Dog Training" even if neither the word "dog" nor "training" appears anywhere on your page.

In addition, outbound links' anchor text works the same way, although it is a little less effective. For instance, if you have a particular keyword in the anchor text of a link on a web page, that web page will likely show up in Google's results -- even if it appears nowhere else on the page, and even if there are no inbound links to the page with that anchor text.

To prove this theory, let's take a look at your web site analytics, specifically your inbound traffic keywords to pages with outbound links. Your likely see a few instances of the page getting traffic for search queries that appear only in the anchor text of outbound link, but not any else on the page.

So how do you make sure your not drawing unwanted traffic with your outbound links?

Here are a couple guidelines that will help you avoid the mishandling of your page's outbound links' anchor text:

1. Include relevant outbound links on the webpage. There are lots of sites whose pages have no outbound links but include a navigation bar, and probably a link to the site's webmaster, web host, or cms creator. What do you think the Google bot will think if all you on your home page is anchor text such as "home," "about us," "contact," "privacy," "Design by Dealz By Design," and "This site powered by Wordpress"?

2. Don't include irrelevant links. If you were Google bot, what would you make of a web site that had "dog training" in the page title, headings, and inbound link anchor text -- but had two outbound links with "Holiday Decorations" and "Low-cost Insurance" in the anchor text? Including irrelevant links will confuse the search engines and lower your page rank and search engine traffic.

3. Don't forget the anchor text. If you are linking to a relevant webpage, you should always use your page's target keyword in the anchor text! Don't take the easy way out by using the URL as the anchor text. For one, you are doing a good thing by linking to relevant webpage, so make sure you get credit for the good deed!

Don't get lost in a sea of hidden outbound links, we suggest this site to check your outbound links.

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