What is Link Juice in SEO (The Ultimate Handbook)

Written by: Muninder Adavelli

Updated: July, 18, 2024

Posted in:

Link juice, also called link equity, refers to the equity or value that a page passes to another through backlinks. Search engines consider links as “votes of confidence” by other websites that find your page valuable and trustworthy.

The value passed by link juice helps improve a page’s search engine rankings. However, not all links pass on the same amount of link equity. Various measures determine a webpage’s link juice, such as website metrics and other ranking factors decided by certain search engines.

There are also two ways to spread link juice based on the two ways to build links:

  • Internal link juice: Refers to the linking power passed on to a subpage from a similar domain.
  • External link juice: Describes the link equity passed on to a page from a different domain.
Internal link juice vs. external link juice

Both strategies to spread link juice are effective. However, you’ll need to learn how to execute them properly to benefit from them. Before you delve into that, start by reading on and learning all about link juice.

 

Helpful Article

By definition of link juice, high-quality backlinks are essential in a page to generate more authority and rank better. 

Learn more about what are backlinks and the qualities that make them superior.

Everything You Must Know About Link Juice

Link juice is one of the most valuable factors in SEO. The more link juice a website has, the higher its authority and credibility are, resulting in:

  • Increased organic traffic
  • Enhanced domain profile
  • Improved website visibility
  • Boosted brand awareness
  • Increased sales and revenue
  • Higher search engine ranking

That said, a website’s overall performance is highly determined by the amount of link juice it possesses.

 

Note

Link juice is not the same as PageRank. The former is a term that references link or website metrics. Meanwhile, PageRank is a specific algorithm derived by Google to rank websites based on their backlink profile.

Since PageRank is a type of metric that measures link equity, it’s a reference to link juice.

How Does Link Juice Work?

Google and other search engines use link juice to determine which pages will rank. Usually, those with more link juice appear higher in ranking than those with less.

Consider this example:

Two pages are perfectly optimized for the same keyword. Their difference lies in their number of high-quality backlinks.

Page A and B are competitor websites. Page A has backlinks from three other pages, one of which is from a globally reputable site. Meanwhile, Page B only has one backlink from a low-quality website.

The website with the most link juice is Page A. It has more high-quality backlinks compared to its competitor which has one inferior backlink. 

Page A will rank higher than Page B and experience the many SEO advantages of having a high amount of link juice.

What Are Factors That Affect Link Juice?

Various aspects influence a website’s link juice. The most important ones are as follows:

Site Authority

The number one element to consider is the webpage’s authority, measured by Domain Rating (DR) or Domain Authority. These metrics determine a website’s authoritative power through a range of zero to 100.

The higher the score, the higher the website authority. Search engines trust websites with high DR or DA scores, allowing a greater likelihood of ranking.

Some websites with the highest authority based on their DR or DA are:

Website

Domain Authority Score

Google My Business

100

YouTube 

100

LinkedIn

100

Twitter

100

Facebook

100

Pinterest

100

Reddit

99

Vimeo

98

Links from websites with higher DR or DA are more valuable than links from less authoritative sites. Therefore, your website will receive more link juice from platforms with high DR or DA scores.

Contextual Link

Unlike DR or DA, contextual links cannot be measured numerically. The point of contextual links is to help readers easily understand the context between the backlink and the idea within the linked text.

Contextual linking example

Using contextual links amplifies the link juice of a webpage. This strategy signals to search engines that your page has a “customer first” approach, which prioritizes providing value to readers over website optimization.

Link Relevance

Search engines use relevancy as an indicator of quality content and platform. If backlinks are relevant to the referring and target sites, then they produce more link juice.

For instance, a food and nutrition database website has a backlink to a nutritionist’s blog. The Google algorithm sees this interaction that both websites are valuable, allowing both pages to rank higher than their competitors.

Meanwhile, if the food and nutrition website links to a page talking about gaming software, search engines will not find a reason to recommend the pages on search engine result pages (SERPs).

Relevant linking produces link juice visualization

Link Crawlability and Attributes

Search engine crawlers must be able to read and follow links on your website. Otherwise, the link will be in vain, no matter how much link juice it has.

According to Google, a link is only crawlable if it’s an <a> HTML element with an ‘href’ attribute. 

 

Example of a crawlable link with ‘href’ attribute

<a href=”https://example.com”>

This link is also a “dofollow” link since it signals to Google that the referring site allows the transfer of link juice to the target site.

Aside from ‘href’ value, also note the additional ‘rel’ attribute. This aspect aims to signal to Google the relationship of your website to the link page.

Here are the following ‘rel’ values and their implications based on Google Search Central guidelines:

rel=”nofollow”

Websites use this attribute to tell Google they don’t want to pass any link juice to the linked platform. Therefore, the link will not contribute any value to the receiving site.

 

Example of a crawlable link with a rel=”nofollow” value

<a href=”https://example.com” rel=”nofollow”>Example Website</a> 

rel=”ugc”

This attribute is for user-generated content (UGC) links. It refers to links to comments and forum posts that are trustworthy and worth recognizing.

 

Example of a crawlable link with a rel=”ugc” value

<a href=”https://example.com” rel=”ugc”>Example Website</a>

rel=”sponsored”

Websites mark advertisements, paid placement, and sponsored content with the “sponsored” value. Although these types of links are technically paid, Google treats them as an exception from site reputation abuse.

 

Example of a crawlable link with a rel=”sponsored” value

<a href=”https://example.com” rel=”sponsored”>Example Website</a>

Link Placement on the Page

The position of the linked text can affect how much link juice it carries. More link juice flows from a link within the top part of the page or is a part of the page’s main content.

When the link is situated in the footer or sidebar, Google considers it to be less valuable, providing less link equity.

Number of Links on a Page

Getting a link from a page with hundreds of other sites linked to it only passes on a small amount of link juice. That’s because Google divides the equity per link.

For instance:

If a page links out to five other websites, each target site will receive 20% of the total link juice of the referring site. That amount is not bad, but only if a page is high-quality.

But if a page contains 50 outbound links, that only leaves each referring site with 2% of the total available link juice.

How to Check Link Juice

Certain metrics and tools can help you determine or estimate the equity of links based on certain metrics.

Most tools, like Yoast and Google Analytics, typically use the factors discussed earlier to measure link juice. Meanwhile, other tools create and use their own metrics, such as:

Moz

Certain metrics and tools can help you determine or estimate the equity of links based on certain metrics.

Most tools, like Yoast and Google Analytics, typically use the factors discussed earlier to

Moz landing page

Moz is an all-in-one SEO toolkit that has a dedicated tool for link building. It uses the following metrics and qualities to calculate link juice:

  • PageRank
  • Anchor text
  • Page authority
  • Number of links
  • Domain authority
  • Linking root domains

 

Definition

‘Linking root domains’ refers to the number of distinct domains in Moz’s system. This metric is different from the raw number of links.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs landing page

Ahrefs is a leading software company with notable SEO tools and accessible educational materials. Users can manually find and assess backlink opportunities through Ahref’s database.

Ahrefs has its own backlink metrics to determine link juice, which are: 

  • URL Rating (UR)
  • Ahrefs Rank (AR)
  • Domain Rating (DR)

SEMRush

SEMRush offers professional insights and solutions for platforms through its search engine optimization, pay-per-click content, and research tools. 

It measures link juice and performance through the following distinct metrics:

  • Authority score
  • Link toxicity score
  • Number of referring domains and backlinks
  • Number of links earned per link building campaign

How to Calculate Link Juice of a Webpage

There’s a way to manually calculate the amount of link juice on a webpage. This technique is derived from Google’s division of link equity.

First, identify the Domain Rating of the website and the number of external links present on a specific page. You can use the SEO tools mentioned earlier to get this information.

For this example, we’ll use the following values:

  • Page A Domain Rating: 75
  • Page A number of external links: 5
  • Page B Domain Rating: 85
  • Page B number of external links: 25

Let’s calculate each page’s link juice based on the formula: Domain Rating / Number of external links

Page A link juice: Domain Rating / Number of external links = 75 / 5 = 15 link juice per link

Page B link juice: Domain Rating / Number of external links = 85 / 5 = 3.4 link juice per link

Calculating the link juice of pages A and B showed that a high domain rating is not everything when it comes to getting more link juice. 

As mentioned earlier, the number of external links on a page can affect the amount of link juice.

Overall, you’ll need a page with a high website DR and a few external links to receive more link juice. 

Ways to Boost Your SEO with More Link Juice

You can already apply the metrics and tools that this article has discussed so far to boost your SEO with more link juice. 

Additionally, you can explore further strategies to generate higher link equity:

Internal Linking

As discussed, there are two types of link juice, one of which comes from internal links. 

Their link juice power is often overlooked, but internal links carry value and are easier to position on a webpage.

Just ensure that your internal links are relevant and linked to a contextual anchor text. Also maximize their power by placing them in prime spots on your page.

Create More Linkable Assets

Your platform becomes a link magnet when it hosts creative and unique assets such as quality content, statistics pages, and videos.

Creating these assets not only demonstrates value to your audience but also boosts your platform’s trustworthiness and authority in the eyes of search engines.

Supercharge Your Link Juice Strategy Now

Start implementing the knowledge you learned from this article to produce more link juice. 

Maximize the opportunities and benefits of having plenty of link juice by creating a good backlink strategy. Doing so will help sustain the amount of link juice your website produces and increase it.

In LinkBuilding.Pro, we can help streamline the whole process of increasing link juice production and maintaining your backlinks. 

Unlike other tools, LinkBuilding.Pro carefully assesses each website and closely monitors their performance. With that, users no longer need to manually input any information or do everything.

 

FAQs on What is Link Juice



Which link does not pass on link juice?

Only links with a “dofollow” attribute pass on link juice. Meanwhile, “nofollow” links don’t pass link juice and only have minimal SEO value.



What is SEO equity?

Equity in SEO is any intangible benefit derived from SEO efforts. Link juice is an example of SEO equity.



Do redirects pass link juice?

A redirected link signals to search engines that a page is temporarily moved to a new URL. The search engine transfers all link equity to the new page. As a result, the new page gains all SEO value. 

Tutorial By: Muninder Adavelli

Harsha Kiran is a seasoned Link Building Strategist with over 10 years of experience in SEO. Passionate about organic growth, Harsha has helped numerous clients achieve long-term SEO success. When not strategizing, Harsha enjoys hiking and photography.