Link juice: Is it the brand new snake oil of Google search engine optimization?

Link juice: Is it the brand new snake oil of Google search engine optimization?


Should you reject any search engine marketing advice citing "link juice"? Here's a study the term's origins and why you should not completely dismiss it.


Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller – in a unprecedented case of annoyance – said that any search engine optimization recommendation mentioning “hyperlink juice” isn't to be relied on. Is it or now not?


I wondered approximately the context and doubted whether or not it was authentic.


After Barry Schwartz shared the news on LinkedIn, a energetic debate ensued. Even Moz and SparkToro founder Rand Fishkin chimed in at the remarks pronouncing, “Maybe link juice is actual in the end. Maybe y’all should write more about it!”


The records of hyperlink juice

When Google commenced out in the crowded and messy search engine market, it had a revolutionary ranking set of rules that used the so-referred to as “PageRank” to determine website authority. It changed into named after Google co-founder Larry Page, no longer (just) the actual “internet page.”


search engine marketing professionals started to use many distinctive slang phrases for PageRank – “Google juice” or “hyperlink juice” being among the maximum famous.


In the early years considering that its inception, Google executed pretty properly by PageRank alone and grew its marketplace share continuously. 


First-generation engines like google like AltaVista, Yahoo and Infoseek had been easily gamed by means of surely the usage of:


Keyword stuffing.

Hidden text.

Misleading meta tags.

Once Google grew large enough to dominate the market, unethical search engine optimization practitioners especially focused on artificially inflating the range of incoming hyperlinks (also known as inbound links) in order that Google would rank them better.


PageRank became much less and much less of a assure of excellent seek effects leading to Google began adding greater ranking signals to the set of rules through the years. 


How does hyperlink juice paintings?

We might not cross too deep into the topic of link juice, as others have finished earlier than us. An evergreen manual by using WooRank is still well worth analyzing to get a short overview. Their visualizations are especially self-explanatory.


In principle, the internet site authority of the website online linking out is unfold more or much less similarly to the pages it links to. 


But in truth, the procedure is a good deal more complex and hyperlink fee depends on many different factors inclusive of:


Anchor text (<a href="example.Com">I'm the anchor text!</a>): Too many keywords are a purple flag, now not sufficient bypass much less fee.

Placement on the web page: Footer links rely much less than content material links, for instance.

Context on the site and web page: Irrelevant or off-subject matter context passes much less fee.

Additional attributes: HTML rel attributes which includes rel="nofollow, UGC, sponsored" devalue hyperlinks. 

The quantity of links: Link lists with dozens of links won't pass any giant cost.


What terms have to be used instead of hyperlink juice?

You can say many stuff to refer to hyperlink juice with out sounding like a drug provider in a lower back alley. 


Jessica Levenson, Global Head of Digital Strategy & search engine marketing at NetSuite and Oracle, makes it quite clear:


Links and their reason apart, it's the worst phrase ever."

What else can you say alternatively then? Some of the greater expert-sounding phrases encompass:


Link authority

Link value

Link equity



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