Basic Blogging Tip: Link-out like a loose lemon

By ryancaldwellBlogging

I’ll admit it. In the past, I’ve been stingy with my links.

And I’ll also admit that I’ve been stingy with my links because of Google’s PageRank algorithm.

But Google’s PageRank is a theory surrounded by too many epicycles at this point. And now I realize that I’ve been hurting my websites by being stingy.

No more stinginess.

Here’s why you and I should be liberal with our linking:

1. Linking to other sites in your niche draws attention to your own blog
2. Bloggers are lovers. They need some love to give some love.
3. Free-linking breaks up your stale link-network and dissolves bad patterns
4. Quality linking adds value for your readers and establishes you as an authority
5. Quality linking adds value to the Internet

So forget about PR leakage. Forget about monetizing PR. Start linking out like a loose lemon (a loose lemon is one which is not sour).

10 thoughts on “Basic Blogging Tip: Link-out like a loose lemon”

  1. I have just realized the power of linking out more. Like you, I was ‘stingy’ at one point with my links. I’ve realized how that the recursive property of linking others, even when not for any specific benefit, can really benefit you in the long run.

    Thank you for putting this out there.

  4. Ryan, great minds think alike I suppose. One problem I have is I don’t link out enough either (either interally or externally). I thought about changing my habbits the other day, and probably will be changing the way I do things in the next few days.

  6. That makes sense. I agree that it seems linking out far outweighs any potential “loss” for PR sake. I’ve never been one to give much credibility to PR, but I’m always curious to learn something new.

  7. while linking out, think of linking back to your old posts as well.

    Amy – some people thought that if you link out to other blogs, the links to your own pages would lose value (more links on a page = less value per link) and therefore they’d be ‘leaking’ PR to other sites when it should be going back into their own site. The advantages of linking out far outweigh the ‘slight’ loss of PR, IMO, unless your site is so bad that it never gets any links, in which case you have bigger problems than leaky PR.

  8. Think of pagerank as a pie that gets distributed. If there’s only one person eating the pie, then that person gets the whole pie. But if there are eight people eating the pie, then each person only gets 1/8 of the pie.

    Theoretically, pagerank is a unit that each page on the internet has. So, theoretically, if you linkout you are diluting pagerank you could otherwise send to your own sites.

    Link swapping should only be frowned upon if it is between sites that ARE NOT in the same niche. If two sites are in the same niche, then link swapping is very good. It’s a natural part of the social web.

  9. I don’t know much about PR… I’d heard that swapping links was frowned upon, but I’d never heard that one-way outgoing links hurt PR. Do you happen to know what the theory is behind this?

  10. ok. so now take text from my post and tell me where to link to. first come first serve. my hope is place a link over every piece of text.

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