What is an external link? + Best SEO practices

What is an external link?

An external link is a hyperlink on a domain that points to another domain.

External links are valuable to the receiving domain’s SEO because Google and other major search engines see them as a vote of confidence in the linked web page. And each vote indicates that the content on that page is credible, valuable and useful.

Which means:

Pages with many external links pointing to them (also called backlinks) from authoritative sites tend to rank higher in search results.

Clue: You can quickly see how many external links point to your website by running it through Backlink Analysis.

Internal vs. External links

Internal links is the opposite of external links. These are hyperlinks that point to another page on the same website.

This is what an internal link looks like on our blog:

But using both types of links is important for your own SEO.

With the help of External links help:

• Show Google how your content relates to other pages
• Provide value to your readers by offering more information and resources
• Build relationships with other sites, which can lead to exposure, traffic and backlinks

With the help of internal links help:

• Improve the user experience and navigation on your site
• Spread link equity (ranking power) among your pages
• Increase the relevance and authority of your pages for specific keywords

Further reading:

Are external links good for SEO?

Use external links (or outgoing links) on your site can help your SEO in two major ways:...