What is link juice, and How does it works?

We would always want to acquire more link juice to make our websites more authoritative. There are many ways in which we can earn links to our websites both directly and indirectly. Direct link building strategy involves strategies such as guest blogging, social media marketing, press release publishing etc, while indirect efforts for earning quality links come from publishing quality content on your website that attracts the interest of readers who visit your site. They could also share your content around the web if they find it interesting or relevant to the services they need. The link equity which passes from these sites to yours is what we refer to as ‘link juice’ and it differs in authority depending on the site that is linking to you.

Importance Of Link Juice

Link juice is defined as the authority passed to a website and its inner pages. Technically, we can say that it is the amount of positive ranking factor that a link passes from one page to the next. The link metrics of any given web page determines how much juice it can pass to the other web pages. 

It therefore means that a link from a well known blog or website that is seen as an authoritative website will definitely pass more juice than the one from a pointless directory. These terms: link juice, link equity, backlink authority, link authority etc, essentially mean the same thing despite having different words. What do you think are the functions of link juice?

• It serves a purpose such as redirecting the visitor to the homepage of your site (this improves the usability of your website) or to another related page content.
• It increases the authority of your domain or content.

How Does link juice Works?

In order to understand the working principles of link juice and how they are transferred from one site to another, we will look at different case scenarios to have a deeper understanding of the concept of link juice, how it works and how it is being transferred.

Case I: External links that point to a site

Let us assume that there are two websites A and B. A receives links from four blogs, while B receives links from two blogs. It automatically means that more juice will be transferred to A than B. This means A is likely to rank higher than B.

N/B: The assumption is that the sites linking to A and B have the same authority and trust.

CASE 2: External links pointing exclusively to sites

There might be another case scenario, such that sites linking to website A also link to other sites too, while sites linking to website B, exclusively link to only B and no other website. It means in this case that the percentage of juice B will receive is more than the percentage of juice website A is receiving. So chances are B will rank higher than A.

CASE 3: The differences between do-follow and no-follow links

Whether it is a do-follow or no-follow link, link juice is passed and equally distributed to all outgoing links from a website. The difference is that if A has 3 do-follow links and 2 no-follow links, while B has 4 do-follow links and 1 no-follow link. The link juice is passed to the do-follow link. The no-follow links do not receive any juice for A and B.

How To Make Your Site More Authoritative And Receive More Link Juice

Here are the steps to take which would ensure your website receives more authority and gets more link juice. They include:

Creation of helpful and more informative content:

The most efficient and consistent way you can generate authority for your site is by providing valuable content for your visitors. Good content attracts targeted keywords to potentially rank your website and it is also being shared across other platforms and social media.

Make use of user experience best practices

Google’s new policy has gotten increasingly strict about making sure sites rank well. This means for tough keywords, you need to ensure that you provide the best user experience. This also includes mobile-friendly sites and accelerating page load time.

Drive Engagement with social media

Frequent updates to your website are worth viewing. The social media platform is now the most common sharing platform to reach-out to people and create wide interactivity among them.

Link to (and from) other authoritative sites

One of the most efficient ways of getting more link juice is by linking to and from websites seen as authority websites by Google. This gives more link juice to your website and increases your rankings in Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages).