Link juice - what is it?

I talk about backlinks a lot in my LinkedIn articles, and with good reason.

Getting high-quality backlinks is a fantastic way to give your website a boost in the SEO rankings, and spread the word about your business.

However, some links are worth more than others, and that's where link juice comes in.

Fancy a cool, refreshing glass of link juice? You've come to the right place! In this article, I'll explain what link juice is, how it works, and how to make the most of it on your website.

What is link juice?

Link juice describes the value that a web link passes from one site to another.

(Some SEOs absolutely hate the term' link juice', so they refer to it as' link equity' or 'link value' instead!)

Let's say that website A links to website B. Website A passes along some of its authority to website B, giving it a little extra gravitas and a bump in the search engine results pages.

This is why it's so important to get links from high-quality, relevant websites rather than lots of spammy, low-quality ones. You want delicious, nutritious link juice, not stale link juice that tastes like it’s years past its sell-by date.

Link juice is closely related to Google PageRank. A page with a high PageRank will pass on more link juice, and the more link juice your page gets, the higher your PageRank climbs.

How important is link juice?

Google doesn't seem to like talking about link juice. Google's Search Advocate, John Mueller has frequently called out the concept of link juice, saying it ’should be ignored’ in favour of just creating good content.

In the past, people used link juice to game the system.

Back in the day when SEOs could see their PageRank score, they’d take part in something called ‘PageRank sculpting’ to manipulate PageRank through the use of links. In effect, using nofollow tags in links to precisely steer where the link juice went. Google didn’t care for this strategy too much, changing its algorithm so sculpting lost its effectiveness.

However, it’s fair to say that link juice is still helpful. While you shouldn’t build your entire SEO strategy around it, it’s still extremely valuable for getting an extra push in the search engine results.

What factors increase the amount of link juice a website sends?

There isn’t a specific way of determining how much link juice a website will provide. However, these factors can give you a solid indication of how much juice you can anticipate.

• Website Authority. This provides a reliable indication of a page’s PageRank. The higher this score, the higher the level of link juice on offer
• Website relevancy. A link to a page that’s in the same wheelhouse as the host website will get a link juice boost
• The location of a link on a page. Links within the main body of a page are more relevant, so they get more link juice than a link in the footer or sidebar
• The number of links on a page. Link juice is typically spread equally across all links on a page. So if a page links to you alongside nine other websites in the main body of content, you’ll get 10% of the juice on offer
• Link crawlability. Link juice is only passed to dofollow links. So if your link is nofollow – no juice for you

Is link juice just for external links?

Nope, and that’s the great thing. You can pass link equity around with your internal linking too.

Let’s say you have a pillar page on your website about wedding dresses that gets a lot of backlinks. You might have links on your pillar page pointing to other cluster pages on your site like the best shoes to wear with wedding dresses or which hairstyles are best for different wedding dress styles.

By strategically adding links, you can pass along some link juice to these cluster pages, giving them a small boost in the rankings.

This can be a fantastic way to give pages that don’t get a lot of backlinks some authority, or send juice to new pages to get them to rank sooner.

How to make the most of link juice

Want to make your web pages a little sweeter? Here are some quickfire tips for boosting the amount of link juice your pages receive.

• Take control of the narrative. If you’re aiming to get backlinks on other websites, you’ll want as much control over how your link looks and operates as possible. Guest posting is good for this, as you can specify where your link appears and how it looks
• Refine your internal linking strategy. Know which pages you want to link to, which pages are most relevant, and how many links you want on each page. As a starting point, identify five pages on your site with the highest website authority, and determine which pages to link to in order to share the wealth
• Enhance your anchor text. Good, contextual anchor text can provide extra link juice as it tells the search engines what the page that’s linked to is about. Be as detailed as possible and avoid generic link phrases like ‘click here’ or ‘read more’
• Regularly check for broken links. Broken links are a waste of link juice – you’re effectively pouring juice into a bucket with a hole in it. Check for broken links on your website and fix/redirect them as soon as possible

The best way to get link juice? Create high-quality, reliable, trustworthy content that websites in your niche want to link to.

Who said a juice recipe needs to be complicated?

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