The Dark Truth about Outbound Links

**Will.Spencer** · 17 December, 2008, 03:50 AM

Originally Posted by arpitagarwal82

Is just my personal observation that pages with good content tends to gain PR easily.

Good content tends to gain links. Links bring PR.

Originally Posted by Menard

But I seriously doubt that either of you could say without a doubt that it is nothing but link popularity

We can't -- but Google can -- and does.

Originally Posted by LogicFlux

Then this must be the equivalent of taking a DNA sample from Mr. Claus and verifying his identity.

That is the original paper that Larry and Sergey did while students at Stanford. The PR calculation is described in it.

There's also a million other explanations of PR.

My favorite is PageRank Explained with Bright Colours.

**Menard** · 17 December, 2008, 04:01 AM

Originally Posted by Menard

Certainly link building is important. I don't doubt that is the major part of page rank.

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

We can't -- but Google can -- and does.

I'm still trying to find a logical correlation between those two sentences.

I think I'll go ask the Easter Bunny for help.

**Will.Spencer** · 17 December, 2008, 04:55 AM

Ooopps... I quoted the wrong line. Fixed.

**Menard** · 17 December, 2008, 05:24 AM

The Easter Bunny says the same thing

**MeetHere** · 20 December, 2008, 17:19 PM

afraid of BIG G....

**sweetheater** · 28 December, 2008, 17:03 PM

So if anyone gives sitewide link...then it would have adverse effect?? Am I right?

**Will.Spencer** · 28 December, 2008, 17:06 PM

Originally Posted by sweetheater

So if anyone gives sitewide link...then it would have adverse effect?? Am I right?

It would lower the overall PageRank of their site.

**elbandelero** · 29 December, 2008, 07:10 AM

I can't comment on pagerank, but on the subject of outbound links in serps, I have concrete proof that linking to another site can actually help your rankings.

On one of my pages I have a link to another site, and the keyword is in the site's URL, my anchor text doesn't mention the keyword in the same form as the link URL yet I rank on the first page for the keyword. In fact the serp shows my description as being the anchor text and some of the surrounding text.

I think the reason this works for me is possibly because the keyword only has a few results anyway, and perhaps in a more competitive keyword I wouldn't rank at all.