What is Link Equity?
Link equity, also known as link juice, is the value and authority a backlink passes from one webpage to another. You can think of it as a vote of confidence from the site providing the link to the site that is being linked to.
Link equity is an essential signal in SEO, as higher link equity from authoritative and relevant sites can significantly improve a webpage’s search engine rankings. The more high-quality and authoritative links a webpage has, the higher its link equity and the more likely it is to rank on search results pages.
Internal or external links pass link equity. The amount of authority passed depends on several factors, including the authority of the linking site and the relevance of the topics on both sites. As a rule, you want backlinks from authoritative sites in related niches.
It is important to note that only follow links pass link equity. Links set to nofollow, sponsored, or user-generated content do not pass link equity.
How Link Equity Affects Ranking
Link equity is one of the many signals and algorithms that Google uses to determine the PageRank of a site. PageRank is an algorithm that Google uses to analyze the quality and quantity of backlinks a webpage receives and determine the authority to assign to the backlink.
PageRank, on its own, does not determine a site’s ranking. Rather, it is among the signals and algorithms that Google uses to determine a page’s ranking. However, the more high-quality backlinks a webpage receives, the higher its likelihood of ranking on search results pages.
How Google Evaluates the Link Equity
There are several factors that determine how link equity flows from one page to another. The factors are not exhaustive, as Google does not explicitly mention how it determines link equity. However, the factors below will give you an idea.
1 Follow or Nofollow Link
Follow links pass equity, while nofollow links do not pass link equity. Sponsored and user-generated content links are also considered nofollow and do not pass link equity. So, nofollow links do not pass link equity to you. Similarly, you do not pass link equity when you link to other pages using a nofollow link.
2 Number of Links on the Webpage
Link equity is finite. That is, every page has a limited amount of link equity it can transfer. So, the link equity is shared among the links on a webpage. The more links on the page, the less link equity is passed to each webpage that is linked to. Similarly, more link equity is passed when there are fewer links on the page.
3 Site Authority
Links from authoritative and reputable websites carry more weight and are considered more valuable than links from less authoritative sites. As a rule, the more authoritative the site providing the link, the more the link equity passed.
4 Domain and Page Authority
The overall authority of the linking page and domain affects how much equity it can pass to the linked page. The higher the page and domain authority, the higher the link equity passed to the webpage receiving the link.
5 Relevance
Links from pages or sites that are contextually relevant to the linked content are given more importance than links from irrelevant sites. So, it is better to get links from webpages covering the same topic, a similar topic, or those in the same niche.
6 Anchor Text
The text used in the hyperlink provides context about the linked page. This may influence the amount of link equity passed to the site receiving the link. The more relevant the anchor text, the more the link equity that is passed.
7 Link Placement
Links embedded within the main content of a page carry more equity than those embedded in sidebars, footers, or ads. Some of these links, such as ads, do not even pass link equity. Google also automatically categorizes links in certain types of content as nofollow. For example, Google sets links in guest posts to nofollow by default.