The issue of linking in SEO has been hotly debated for years. In fact, it’s one of the most interesting topics for SEO because it creates a moral dilemma. To link or not to link? A literal reading of Google PageRank algorithm shows us that whenever you link out, it leaks a bit of PR from your page. Hardcore SEO gurus use this as a reason to explain why you mustn’t link to external sites.

However, this ignores the social nature of the web. In our first post on SEO software, I made the point that one must perform SEO in order to make it easier for humans to use your site and not just for search engines. By linking out, you make your site more useful to others. But how do we balance out SEO needs and usability needs?

The answer is inlinking. A logical reading of Google’s PageRankng algorithm gives us the answer. When you link to other pages in your site, you redirect more and more link juice into your web pages. Then the leak caused by linking out drops dramatically. For example, if you have just two links on your page. One to your home page and one going out, half the link juice goes out from the outgoing link. If you have 3 more inlinks, then only 1/5th of the link juice exits your site.

Most sites and blogs these days have numerous links going back into the site. Menus, archive pages, categories and tag pages. If you try and link back to pages in your site, you can happily link to external sites for the convenience of your users and suffer no significant penalty. This way, you’ll also be a good citizen of the Internet and your viewers will appreciate it.

By the way, it’s bad manners to use the rel=”nofollow” tag for links going out of your site. If you think a site is worth linking to, then do it justice by letting it have the credit for that link.

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