Outgoing Links Have Positive Effects on SEO

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Study Shows Outgoing Links Have Positive Effects on SEO
by Matt Southern, Search Engine Journal
February 23, 2016

A study conducted by marketing firm Reboot aims to show that there is a positive correlation between a page’s outgoing links and its search rankings. Reboot hypothesized that Google can determine the authority of a page or website based on what other authority sources it associates itself with (by linking to them).

According to the company, Rand Fishkin of Moz observed the data and results before the study was published. Years ago, Moz published its own piece on why external linking is good for SEO, so it’s great to have someone from Moz look at the data and see if it still holds true 5 years later.

The firm carried out the experiment by creating 10 new websites each targeting the same keyword, only half of which included hyperlinks to “very high authority” sources. Each site contained similar content and tag structure, though different enough to not get penalized for duplicate content. After searching for the monitored keywords and recording the results over a 5 month period, Reboot came to the following conclusion:

“Outgoing relevant links to authoritative sites are considered in the algorithms and do have a positive impact on rankings.”

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