If you want to organically rank your website in Google's top results, you need high-authority backlinks.
More than 60% of marketers believe that links are one of the top three ranking factors, and they positively affect search rankings.
High-quality links build your link profile, and link equity determines the value of each link.
Let’s understand link equity and how you can acquire high-caliber backlinks to impact your website's rankings in search results positively.
What is Link Equity?
Link equity measures the value passed from one web page to another through a link.
Links placed higher in the content, particularly within the main body, pass more link equity than those in footers, sidebars, or other less prominent areas.
Also, dofollow vs. nofollow links play an important role in determining link strength. Dofollow links pass more link equity, while nofollow links do not contribute as much to the link value of the destination page.
Why is Link Equity Important?
Understanding why link equity matters is paramount for optimizing your SEO strategy.
Here are the significant benefits of having a good link equity score:
- Higher Organic Rankings: Strong link equity enhances your website’s positioning in organic search listings. Top-tier backlinks are seen as votes, which can increase your site’s rank in search engines.
- Increased Domain Trust: Inbound links from tier-one sites like reputed media publications and popular industry blogs drastically increase your domain rating and trustworthiness. High domain reputation and page link value help build goodwill for the business.
- Better Crawling and Page Indexability: High link authority helps search engines crawl and index your pages efficiently. It facilitates better discovery and categorization of your high-quality content, which can contribute to an enhanced overall SEO footprint.
Factors Impacting the Link Score
The below factors collectively determine how beneficial a backlink is for enhancing your search engine rankings and overall online presence:
- Topical relevance: If the content of the linking page matches the niche of the linked page, it is said to have better topical relevance. Relevant links pass higher link values than pages with irrelevant and non-contextual links. For example, a fashion blog will pass more equity to a page about fashion trends than a page centered on sports.
- Website Credibility: A link's value depends on the website authority from which it originates. Backlinks from older domains having high organic traffic and quality backlinks pass more weightage.
- HTTPS: Links from secured domains are more valuable due to their security. HTTPS is a Google ranking signal that ensures website security. Backlinks from secured websites pass more link equity compared to non-HTTP domains.
- Outbound links: The number of external links on the referring page affects its link authority. If a page contains too many outgoing links, the authority it passes to each link is diluted. Consequently, each link may receive less authority. Hence, you should try to get links from pages with few external backlinks.
- Dofollow vs. Nofollow links: Dofollow links with no “nofollow” or “sponsored” attribute pass the full link juice. In contrast, links marked as “nofollow,” “UGC,” or “sponsored” do not pass any link equity.
- Is the link crawlable?: All backlinks should be crawlable by Google bots and search engine crawlers. They should not be marked as “noidex” or blocked by robots.txt. Ensuring that links are crawlable and there are no broken links is essential for maximizing their impact on SEO and overall link strength.
- Relevance of anchor text: Anchor texts help search engines understand link relevance. Branded and non-promotional text is preferred over spammy and keyword-rich anchor text. Your anchor text selection is important to scale your search engine optimization strategy.
- Link Positioning: Links placed contextually within the content have more value than author bio links. Similarly, links in the main navigation menu pass more link juice compared to footer links. Hence, link placement is vital to boost your flow of link juice.
How To Improve Link Equity
Here are some practical and actionable methods to maintain a strong link profile:
- Create Strong Content: Authoritative content marketing is one of the most effective ways to increase link equity. You should consistently produce and publish linkable assets with unique, authoritative, and EEAT-friendly content. Content types like stats-based articles, infographics, long-form content, and posts on trending topics are great for attracting natural backlinks to raise your domain’s link score.
- Utilize Internal Linking Strategically: You should create internal links that strategically link to other pages on your website. The link depth should be at least three clicks away. You should link to primary pages from the main menu and use a logical structure to link to different pages meaningfully. Also, you should contextualize relevant pages within blog posts to boost your link authority.
- Leverage Social Media Backlinks: You can acquire backlinks from social media platforms. For instance, as part of your link building efforts, you can create profiles on platforms relevant to your industry and get a link from your profile page or bio. Also, you can share good-quality content from your site on your social profiles to acquire more traffic and links. The key is to use high-quality graphics and videos to attract the audience's attention. You can also partner with influencers to help your content go viral. Links from social media sites are mostly nofollow, so they won’t directly impact your link equity. However, popular content on social media based on trending hashtags will indirectly lead to natural backlink acquisition, boosting your link score.
- Publish Guest Posts: Submit your expertly written contributions to industry-leading blogs and niche publications. You should deliver value to your target audience without the sole motto of link acquisition. By publishing content with a unique angle to a popular topic, you can raise your chances of guest post-acceptance and gain editorial links to your website from a popular and relevant blog in your industry. If you are short on time, you can quickly check our guest posting services to acquire high-quality backlinks.
How do I track and measure the link equity of my website?
The best way to find out the link equity of your domain is to measure it with the help of backlink tracking tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz. These tools help assess the anchor text profile and identify any low-quality or spammy links.
You can also check the number and quality of links pointing to your site using Google Search Console.
For example, Moz provided two significant metrics, domain and page authority, that measure the domain's strength and credibility. Higher domain authority scores indicate stronger link equity.
Ahrefs also has its own link equity measurement metric, Domain Rating. Higher DR indicates better link authority and vice versa.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do all links pass equal equity?
No, every link is unique, and each link passes different link equity. Links from pages with a high link score will pass more link juice than low authority pages. Quality domains with strong authority and relevance pass more value and positively impact your SEO. In contrast, PBNs (private blog networks), unnatural link schemes, and low-end web directories provide low-quality, manipulative links coming from link farms that can harm your site's credibility and diminish link equity. You should disavow such links to keep your domain safe from Google penalties.
Can I get more Link Equity from high-authority websites?
Yes, you can get more link equity from powerful backlinks coming from authoritative websites. High-quality, relevant links from authoritative sites pass significantly more link equity than those from less reputable or lower-quality sites. Search engines view authoritative domains as trustworthy and influential, so backlinks from these reliable sources are highly valuable and contribute more to improving your site's search engine rankings and overall SEO strength. You should plan high authority link building campaigns to acquire strong sources of link juice from reputable sites.
Are Link Equity and PageRank the same?
No, they are not the same. PageRank is a link analysis algorithm named after Larry Page that measures the importance of a website page, whereas link equity is the transfer of link juice from one website page to another.
Can link value be lost?
Yes, link equity can be lost. This can happen if solid backlinks are removed, search engines deindex the linking pages, or the quality of links from external websites diminishes. Additionally, changes in a site's structure, such as the implementation of nofollow attributes or technical issues, can impact the flow of link equity. Regularly monitoring and maintaining your backlink profile is essential to prevent and address potential losses in link equity.
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