Do You Link to External Sites?

August 5, 2008
By: Drew Meyers
Author's Website: http://virtualresults.net

When it comes to your linking strategy, are you in the “Don’t Link to External Sites” camp? If so, Rand at SEOmoz has some points you might want to consider. And if that post doesn’t convince you that not linking out is a bad strategy, consider these points from “Quit Hogging all the Links“:

| More

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to the Geek Estate Blog feed or get updates via e-mail

Ryan Ward

I think it's as simple as - will a link out help readers of the post? If the answer is yes, insert the link.

There is no reason to over analyze this. Sometimes people get "SEO Tunnelvision". Think about the people you are writng for and the rest works itself out.

Brian Chase, Realtor in Charlo

I definitely agree that links can be beneficial and educational. I used the links in this post to learn more about the post you were referencing.

Valerie Suelzer

I agree that from a Real Estate brokerage viewpoint, we should (and do) link out to useful information that is outside of our realm.

However, do we agree that advertising other vendors on your site is another animal? We were recently approached by a data aggregator who would like us to post advertising linking out to vendors for services such as credit reports, security systems, paint, home-insurance, etc.. In that case, I think it is a bad idea.

Joseph Bridges

The Internet was built on sharing information. Links help continue that and build information. People cannot be islands on the Internet and Chris makes a great point about the sharing and how the commercialization of the Internet took the linking concept away for a little bit but I think that linking is back in.

Jeff in Hawaii

I think it is healthy for your site to link out. It is actually natural to link to other sites. I also believe your users appreciate links from your site to other useful information that can help them. Users going to a real estate related site may be interested in things like: mortgages, area information, schools, rental market information, temporary housing while house hunting and many other services that go a long with buying or selling a home.

If you share the love others will also do the same for you and actually drive more visitors to your site. Its all about more exposure, isn’t it? :-)

Drew Meyers

Chris-
Well said -- I certainly agree with you that people should link to a source that can explain something in more detail than they can.

Chris Latko

Links built the Internet (web). One of the original visions of Tim Berners-Lee was to make a compendium of knowledge with cross linking to allow people to click on words or topics for more information. As the web became more commercialized, we saw the rise of information islands with no cross linking due to the hoarding eyeballs mentality of VCs and their funded startups. Not good.

If you really want to provide value to your users, link out to sites you feel explain the topics better than you can.

Recent Contributors