Outgoing Links and SEO

There’s a nice discussion over at SEOmoz - based on a discussion over at sitepoint - about the value of outgoing links. Well, it’s not really a discussion as the consensus is that they do help, but both views are presented.

They do:

“I believe that search engines use outbound links like any other type of on-page content to help determine things like “trust”, “quality” and “authority”. It may not provide a large boost, but by linking to high quality sites that are relevant to your page topics, you’re showing search engines (and visitors) that you take the quality of your own pages seriously and are linking with care and intent (rather than for advertising or link exchange purposes).”

They don’t:

Thats like saying by using meta tags you’re showing that your pages are of high quality. Outgoing links are meaningless in this regard. Anyone can add them, regardless of the quality of their site, and they do not automatically add to the quality of their site.

There’s also a few comments worth noting:

• If linking to bad sites constitutes bad neighborhood, won’t linking to good ones constitutes good neighborhood?
• There is absolutely no question outbound links help. If you engage in any buying and selling of text link advertising you’ll see the value pretty quickly.

The conclusion: link out. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll be better off doing what your users will appreciate. The engines are always catching up to these practices, and following them will nine times out of 10 put you in the right place for your long-term marketing strategy.