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SEO Tip 9: Be careful with those outbound links

In the same way that inbound links are good for the page’s ranking, outbound links can have a negative effect. Whether or not outbound links do have a negative effect will of course depend on the search engine and where the link goes to.

For example, the original Google pagerank algorithm gives a page a higher page rank for the more and better quality inbound links, but equally links out from a page have a negative impact on the page rank. So outbound links (especially links to pages not on your website) can sap pagerank and lower your SERPS ranking.

Consider what links are on the page.
Remove unnecessary links to other pages – but do not remove links where this compromises the usefulness of the page.
Where links are included make the link as descriptive as possible, and avoid using unclear link descriptions such as “click here”.
Do not link to sites or pages that might be considered to be “link-farms”. These risk getting your entire site penalized.

This tip is part of a series of tips on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The previous tip in the series was Tip 8: Get lots of inbound links and the next tip in the series is Tip 10: Make sure its valid!.