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The Value of Outbound Links

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Good outbound links can help your rankings.Outbound links to quality content are good not only for the site being linked to, but also for the site doing the linking.

Many people are reluctant to link to other web sites, for fear the visitor may not return to the original site, and for the fear that outbound links can drain Link Authority.

Neither fear is justified.

Can outbound links hurt my search rankings?

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To keep from losing your visitors to an external web site, you can simply set up the outbound link to open in a new tab or a new window. Then if your visitor closes that window or tab, Bada-Bing! — they’re right back on your site where they were before they left.

As for draining your Authority, that simply doesn’t happen. And if you choose your outbound link target pages on relevance to your own content and on the quality of their content, then according to Matt Cutts (“The Google Guy”), Google’s going to reward you. [Update: Matt is no longer with Google.]

Basically, Google (as well as other search engines) wants to reward web sites that provide value to their visitors. And if your pages contain links to highly valued content that’s relevant to your visitors’ interests, Google reflects that in their opinion of your site’s value.

If you’re inclined to check out the technical discussion from Matt (and it is a bit technical) the relevant blog posting is here.

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Don’t Destroy Your Copy For the Sake of Keyword Density

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One of the worst things to ever happen to web sites was the discovery of keyword density. According to copywriting expert Karon Thackton,

The mere introduction of this concept led to the mutilation and destruction of innocent copy all across the globe. Without any regard to flow or customer experience, website owners around the world began shoving keyphrases into their copy like wild men. The results have been disastrous! Otherwise wonderful content has been utterly destroyed.

One common mistake Karon  points out is that many web site owners who’ve heard about keyword density replace every single instance of a generic key term with one of their chosen keyword phrases. In moderation, that’s OK, but often they get carried away with tragic results.

Here’s an example Karon cites:

Spanish Villas For Rent

If you are looking for Spanish villas vacations, search our site for the best deals in Spanish villas. No other Spanish villas site has the selection of premium Spanish villas with the most sought after locations that we have. View some of our Spanish villas pictures or take virtual tours of our Spanish villas today.

Looks like they want to get rankings for “Spanish villas”. Dontcha think? But copy like that will drive actual humans away immediately!

Top rankings in all the search engines do you no good at all if your web site turns people off and nobody buys from you. Writing interesting and compelling copy for your potential customer is far more important than slightly higher search engine rankings.

Check out our information about copywriting to learn how to do this right.

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Duplicate Content: How Does it Affect Your Rankings?

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Richard Drawhorn has written a good article for the MarketPosition Newsletter that sheds light on the problem of duplicate content and how search engines deal with it.
If search engines detect duplicate content on your web site, it can hurt your rankings because they consider it a form of spam. In his article, Drawhorn reviews some of the ways duplicate content may appear on your site and a few strategies to avoid being penalized by search engines.
In general, the rule of thumb to follow when creating content for your web site is this: The same content should never be available from more than one URL. Very simple.
If your web site violates that rule, then your rankings in the search engines will suffer. You should get rid of any blatant or obvious violations of this rule ASAP.