What’s Behind Outbound Links, Study by Search Engine Mentor

There are many activities in the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) process, and one of them is the application of outbound links. Friends may know more about internal links than these outbound links. Even some people may be reluctant to implement it.

Even though many SEO professionals recommend embedding, outbound links when creating article content. In order for our SEO knowledge to increase, let’s find out the meaning of outbound links and the best way to implement, according to Search Engine Mentor.

What are Outbound Links?

Outbound link is one of the link building tactics by directing outbound links from the owner’s website, for example from website A to website B.

Another term for outbound links is external links. Alias an outgoing link that we provide to other websites.

Outbound links are often used in articles to add context and to provide users with additional sources of relevant and more in-depth information.

The website that is the destination for outbound links is usually a website that already has a high enough authority.

The selection of a high-authority website as the destination for outbound links is done to convince users that the content we create comes from a trusted source.

Therefore, if you want the content you create to be trusted by users, then don’t hesitate to embed outbound links.

So that we can put these outbound links into the user experience factor, and user experience (UX) is an important part of SEO.

The Difference between Outbound Link and Inbound Link

Outbound links are links that go from website A to website B, then what about inbound links.

Inbound links are the opposite of outbound links, namely links that point to the website, for example, webpage B with ABC content gets an inbound link from webpage A on XYZ content. Another term for inbound links is backlinks, alias incoming links, or links that we get from other websites.

Both types of links are important for SEO because they can improve the user experience and provide deeper context for Google.

The difference between external links and internal links include:

Outbound links direct links to other websites, while internal links get links from other websites. Out = out, In = in.

If the outbound link gives “vote” authority/recommendation, then the inbound link gets “vote” authority/recommendation.

Outbound links provide link equity to other websites, and inbound links bring equity links from other websites

Outbound links direct users (traffic) to other websites, while inbound links bring users (traffic) from other websites

From the points of difference above, many of my friends certainly expect more to get inbound links than to provide outbound links. It is not like that.

Benefits of Providing Outbound Links

Some people are very heavy on giving outbound links, even anti, even though outbound links can provide a number of benefits for the performance of our content.

Here are some of the benefits of implementing outbound links:

1. Reinforcing Topic Depth & Clarify Content Purpose

For Google, providing outbound links to relevant websites is one of the factors that can strengthen the topic of discussion, clarify the purpose and context of our content.

With that, Google will be able to more easily understand the contents of the content you create.

Embedding an outbound link also represents how deep the topic is discussed and can help users get more information.

Especially if the topic you are, discussing concerns YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) and is closely related to Google E-A-T.

Therefore, you don’t need to hesitate or be afraid to use outbound links on your website.

2. Adding Value (Benefits/Added Value) to Our Content

you may ask, “Does embedding outbound links have a negative impact?”.

The answer is no.

This is supported by the following statement by John Mueller:

Providing links to other websites is a great way to provide value to users. Often, links can help users to find out more, to check the source of your writing and to better understand whether your content is relevant to the questions they have.”

3. Bringing Confidence to Users

When you were in school or college, surely you often attached quotes, data, statistics, to facts in papers based on trusted sources.

Likewise with the content that you create, outbound links become a “record” source for what you write.

If there are quotes, statistics, images, or even Twitter tweets in the content, then provide a link to the source.

For example in this article, if the author doesn’t attach outbound links to other sources, will you believe this article?

4. Demonstrating Expertise

In the first point above, the author mentions Google E-A-T. E-A-T itself stands for Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. This E-A-T includes three aspects, namely: author, content, and the website as a whole.

So, incorporating authoritative outbound links into content can actually reflect the author’s expertise.

Here’s a quote from the Google Search Central web:

Does the content present information in a way that can be trusted, such as including clear sources, attached proof of expertise, background of the author or website that published it, embedding a link to the author’s profile or About Us page?

In essence, Google considers links to information sources to be evidence of how expert the author and webpage are.