Wednesday, October 08, 2008<\/p>\n
\n Creating outbound links on your site, or “linking out”, is our topic for Day 3 of \n When it comes to the less-than-ideal practices of linking out, there shouldn’t be too many \n When linking out, am I sending visitors away forever?!<\/b> Hmmm… visitors may initially leave
\n Links Week<\/a>. Linking out
\n happens naturally, and for most webmasters, it’s not something you have to worry about.
\n Nonetheless, in case you’re interested about an otherwise simple topic that’s fundamental to
\n the web, here’s the good, the bad, and answers to more advanced questions asked by our fellow
\n webmasters. First, let’s start with the good…\n<\/p>\nRelevant outbound links can help your visitors.<\/h2>\n
\n
Thoughtful outbound links can help your credibility.<\/h2>\n
\n
\n radar of other successful bloggers and begin a business relationship)\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n surprises, but we’ll go on record to avoid any confusion…\n<\/p>\nUnmonitored (especially user-generated) links and undisclosed paid advertising outbound links
\n can reduce your site’s credibility.<\/h2>\n\n
\n not have much more than 100 links per page<\/a>)\n <\/li>\n
\n If you accept payment for outbound links, it’s best to apply
\n rel=\"nofollow\"<\/code><\/a>
\n on them or otherwise ensure that they don’t pass PageRank for search engines. (As a user, I
\n prefer to see disclosure to maintain my loyalty as well.)\n <\/li>\n
\n perspective, comment spam can connect your site with bad neighborhoods instead of legitimate
\n resources. Webmasters often add the nofollow<\/code> attribute
\n (rel=\"nofollow\"<\/code>) to links that are user generated, such as spammable blog comments,
\n unless the comments are responsibly reviewed and thus vouched for. See Jason Morrison’s recent
\n blog post about
\n keeping comment spam off your site<\/a>
\n to prevent spam in the first place.\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\nAnswers to advanced questions about outbound links<\/h2>\n
\n your site to check out relevant information. But can you recall your behavior on sites that link
\n to good articles outside their domain? Personally, I always come back to sites I feel provide
\n commentary and additional resources. Sometimes I stay on the original site and just open up the
\n interesting link in a different tab. It’s likely that with relevant outbound links you’ll gain
\n repeat visitors, and you won’t lose them forever.\n<\/p>\n