Gary Illyes said back in the day that it makes him angry when publishers don't link out to their sources. We also know that there is no penalty for not linking out. But now, John Mueller of Google is defending sites that don't link out.
John said on Twitter that "maybe they've just had enough of all the link building requests & sneaky link drops?" Maybe that is why they no longer link out because they are just sick of it. Here is the tweet:
@pablocanog @Google Why? It's their site. Maybe they've just had enough of all the link building requests & sneaky link drops?
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) March 8, 2017
I personally think it would be awesome if Google did slap the hand of a site that doesn't cite the source of their information. But to penalize sites for not linking out in general is not something I'd expect from Google.
What do you think?
Forum discussion at Twitter.
