Why You Need Inbound and Outbound Links On Your Website

A website is like a train station, it has visitors that come and go through it to get around on the Internet. Think about it, whenever you visit a website, you click on a link that takes you to the next page that has the information on it your desire. Eventually if you click long enough you get to a web "station" that allows you to visit any website in the world.

This would in essence be a web portal, like Yahoo or AOL has. For these big web "stations" you can get to anywhere around the world. This is what the search engine spiders have to do; they can’t “Google” a web site like you and me. They rely on link to web pages, and eventually run into a huge web station that they constantly come back to for references.

Now some webmasters build website that only interlink to themselves, to the eyes of a spider this is a dead end site. Spiders like new information, but love discovering new links as well, so if you are not feeding them new links they will actually visit your site less, than if you have new links for them to discover new sites with content on.

All this of course goes in contrast with the PageRank Web Gurus that only worry about keeping all their PageRank "juice" to themselves. If you look at any major website with high volumes of traffic, you will notice, they are always linking to other pages, and other websites related to their industry. That keeps them relevant for the users and search engines. In fact it is a well know fact that having a higher PageRank will not necessary increase your traffic. It simple means that you will have an easier time rank better in the search engines for keywords you are targeting.

But remember, people want links to more and more information. In theory there is no way to really provide all the information you can to everyone, so it is necessary to link to other sites that know the niche topic a little more than you do. Spiders love this, since you always have new improved links, and they can discover new sites thanks to you. People love this since they can use your website as a point of reference, and follow it to other websites with quality information.

What ends up happening is that Spiders will remember you and continuous come back to your website for reference at a much more frequent rate. This will allow your pages to be discovered faster, and indexed more quickly. People will also bookmark you so they can come back to you for reference also, since you are the "Portal" of your industry.

From a personal experience, I have several websites that I visit on a daily bases for information, news, and links to other new websites and technologies out there. I will continue uses these places at a point of reference until they stop updating their info, or become boring. This is what brand loyal is about.

From a developer experience, I noticed that when you have outbound links on a page, spiders are more likely to index that page, than that of a dead end page. It makes sense, since spiders want to know of places that they don't know exist yet. The only way they can discover new places is by remembering the pages that allows them to do so. Why would they want to remember a dead end alley?

When it comes down to it, yes outbound linking will give away your precious PageRank juice, but at the same time, you are not getting traffic from your PageRank number, you are getting traffic because you are providing a service spiders and people want and need. Spider and People come to you to get information. PageRank has to be spread around the web to rank better pages higher. When you stop linking to web sites, it breaks the basic system of the Internet. With out helping spread the links, how are Google, Yahoo, and Ask search engines going to find great content?

I personally could care less about PageRank. Instead I concentrate more on getting Traffic. I want to do things that get me traffic, and create brand loyalty for future traffic. That's they way I make money.

Great websites strives to become the hub of their industry, the "Grand Central" station, if I may. When you become a portal of your industry you are setting the standards of that industry. Everyone ones to link to you, are just help you out since they know that you can send them huge amounts of traffic at that level. So become a "Grand Central" not a dead end alley site.