Study Says Outbound Links Helps Google Rankings, Despite What Google Says

Feb 23, 2016 - 8:40 am 22 by

Chalkboard9 Google 1900px

Not even a month ago, we reported that John Mueller of Google said that outbound links are not a ranking factor. He clearly said that and Google said it also last year.

But a new study by Reboot Online says they have pretty good evidence suggesting otherwise. Go ahead, read the study and see how they concluded that "we have proved they do have a positive impact if used correctly." In fact, Rand Fishkin of Moz posted on Twitter that his "conclusion" is that "linking out to good sites is almost certainly a net benefit for how Google considers your pages."

Here are his tweets:

I really do enjoy it when folks call out Google, indirectly, as lying about their ranking algorithm. Some do it just because they have personal experience with SEO and some do it using a lot of data.

Do you think Google lied about external links or there are other factors at play. Again, please read the study before commenting on this.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: June 16, 2025

Jun 16, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google

Google Search Tests Audio Overview

Jun 16, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Merchant Center Updates Some User Interface Elements

Jun 16, 2025 - 7:41 am
Bing Search

Bing Tests Dropping Microsoft Name From Bing Search Box

Jun 16, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Tests New Charts Interface For Campaigns

Jun 16, 2025 - 7:21 am
Web Analytics

ChatGPT Updates To Improve Tracking In Analytics With More UTM Parameters

Jun 16, 2025 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google Finance Replaces News Box With Ads