What is Link Equity? And Why It’s Important

If you own or manage an online business, you’ll need to develop a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. This will involve building your link equity to boost domain authority in your industry or niche. However, if you’re new to SEO, you might be wondering what link equity is and why it’s important.

To put it simply, link equity (sometimes referred to as link juice), measures how much value and authority your web pages have based on their internal and external links. With a strong link-building strategy, you can boost your link equity and rank higher in search results.

In this post, we’ll start by diving deeper into link equity and what it is. Then, we’ll discuss some factors that determine link equity and share a few tips for boosting it. Let’s get to it!

What Is Link Equity?

First of all, let’s talk about what link equity (or “link juice”) is. In a nutshell, it’s the value that a referring page passes to another page when linking to it, and vice versa.

That means your web pages can get it from links pointing to them, and you can pass it along by including external links in your content.

Of course, you can only pass link equity if you have it to begin with. We’ll discuss what determines link juice a little later in this article.

Why Is Link Equity Important?

So, why is link equity important? Well, for starters, it affects how your web pages perform in search engines like Google:

This can impact how easily people can find your website organically in search results. Therefore, it determines how well you can reach your goals, whether it’s driving sales or simply educating readers.

With Google in particular, link equity is an explicit search engine ranking factor because of the PageRank algorithm. This algorithm measures the quantity and quality of links pointing to a web page.

That are several factors that determine link quality, including relevance and the authority of the linking page. We’ll discuss them in more detail in the next section.

7 Factors That Determine Link Equity

Now that we’ve discussed the importance of link equity, we’re going to look at seven factors that contribute to it.

#1. Link Relevance

Since the creation of the PageRank algorithm, link relevance has been one of the most important factors when determining link equity. This should come as no surprise, as Google and other search engines are always working to improve the user experience and deliver the best and most useful results.

This standard encourages best practices in link-building efforts. Plus, it discourages content creators and website owners from including random links on their pages. As a result, only the most helpful links make the cut (at least that’s the goal).

#2. Website Authority

Website authority (also called “domain authority”) is another factor that impacts link equity. Essentially, high-authority websites are deemed more credible and trustworthy.

Similarly, they are more likely to have helpful content for users. Therefore, they can pass link juice more easily to other pages.

You can check a site’s domain authority using SEO tools. Ahrefs offers a free website authority checker:

To give an example of a website with strong page authority, let’s check out Statista’s rating:

As you can see, this website has an excellent Domain Rating (DR) score (or what Ahrefs calls website authority). This is likely because Statista collects credible research and synthesizes it for users.

#3. Link Position

Next, let’s talk about link position. This is the location of a link on a page, which can also impact how much link equity is passed along.

If relevant links are meant to be truly helpful, they should always be incorporated naturally into the text. Again, this has to do with Google’s PageRank algorithm, which was updated to include the Random Surfer Model.

This states that link placement is important as it affects the chances that a reader will click on it. Therefore, links placed lower on the page might not be deemed high quality.

For instance, sidebar and footer links are unlikely to pass link juice because they are geared toward facilitating the navigation of a website.

#4. Link Density

Link density also affects the link equity that’s passed between web pages. Basically, if a web page that links to your site has included hundreds of other links on the same page, there won’t be as much link juice to go around.

So, on your end, you’ll want to avoid link stuffing (adding too many links) and any other link practices that are bad for SEO.

Instead, you’ll want to incorporate internal and external links only when necessary.

Internal linking in blog posts can also be an effective way to help keep people on your website.

#5. Link Status

If you’re a seasoned blogger, you’re probably familiar with the tags for creating nofollow links. These are also crucial when it comes to determining link equity.

This is because a “nofollow” tag tells search engine crawlers to ignore those links, which makes it impossible for them to pass on their link equity.

With this in mind, you’ll want to make sure not to use the nofollow tag if you’re hoping to pass or receive link equity.

#6. Page Status

The page status of the page you’re linking to is also important. Naturally, any web pages that are throwing HTTP status codes such as the “page not found” error, may not be considered.

Similarly, any pages that are deemed “uncrawlable” for any other reason might not be able to pass on link juice.

#7. Anchor Text

Anchor text refers to the link text that can be clicked. This is another factor that affects the value that is passed to the linking page.

That’s because it impacts how well it can be crawled by search engine bots, and how useful it is to readers. According to Google’s SEO best practices, anchor text should be descriptive, relevant, and concise.

How to Boost and Preserve Link Equity

If you want to boost link equity for your web pages, it can be useful to use a backlink analysis tool like the Ahrefs Backlink Checker:

This will show a list of pages that link to your site, with anchor text and target URL. You can then use this information to optimize your link-building strategy, while keeping in mind the factors mentioned above.

It’s important to note that you run the risk of losing all of your hard-earned link equity if you change your domain.

Therefore, if you haven’t already done so, you’ll want to make sure to pick your domain name wisely and register it with a quality domain registrar like SirsteveHQ.

You can use SirsteveHQ’s free domain search tool to find the perfect domain name. This enables you to filter your search by category and availability.

Conclusion

If you want your website to perform well in search engine rankings, you’ll need to have strong link equity. As we have discussed, this is the value that is passed between pages via internal and external links.

There are quite a few factors that determine link equity. These include link relevance, page authority, page status, and anchor text. Link location, density, and status also play a role. You can improve link equity by considering all these factors when adding URLs to your pages.

Do you have any questions about what determines link equity? Let us know in the comments section below!