What's the "Normal" Amount of External Links that Most Sites Have?

[addz123]

Obviously Google can devalue sites that are purely built for selling links, but what do you think is a "Normal" rate for Good sites in terms of linking to external resources?

1 external link for every few articles? 1 external link for every 5 articles?

Obviously it will depend on niche, but there must be a point where Google goes "This looks spammy, we see what's going on here..."

Do you think if you linked out a TON but only to high quality sites where it was extremely relevant that your site would still get devalued by Google?

[parttimepoker]

From experience, the answer to your last question is no. We did a daily article on PTP that linked out to at least 10 sites per article, and we ran it every day for two years (it continues to run). No problems.

The model of blog as content aggregator is so popular (and useful to users) that I don't think G could penalize for outgoing alone.

Outgoing to bad neighborhoods is the thing to watch out for. Also, unnatural or atypical outgoing links (like 500 stuffed into two paragraphs on the home page) probably raises a flag. Outgoing link volume (or o/i ratio) itself simply cannot be a signal - it just wouldn't make sense.

Now, could it be part of a signal series? Sure - if G is on the fence about a site due to some other weak signals (marginal content, questionable neighborhood), a weird outgoing to incoming links ratio could help tip the balance.

These are the type of things I don't think people should get hung up on. Build a site that links out as much as you think is useful to users, and don't worry about a magical incoming / outgoing ratio threshold that doesn't exist (or only exists in the minds of people who needed to churn out some more SEO "secrets" content).

[leporello]

Look at Seobook as a great example of linking out. They do it in all kinds of styles, often times links one word after the other all being external links. Should make absolutely no difference as long as you're linking out to relevant quality content. Sure that's the way the interwebs is/was supposed to work and is a basic foundation for what the original Google algorithm was based on.

[pokeraussie]

On the flipside would you be considered a spam site for being link thrifty? is that a word haha. The web is built on links its only normal to link out to sites.

I think from an algorithmic point of view things that would suggest spam include #, location, relevance of sitewide links. For example, if you have a footer stuffed with unrelated sites, like if you were linking to your network of sites, or if you have a blogroll with 20 links that have no relevance to your niche, that would set a red flag.

[leporello]

It has long been suggested that linking out to high quality content is an algorithmic signal that is used. Linking out on it's own may not accomplish anything but using that as well as various other signals of trustworthiness may well help.

[parttimepoker]

On the flipside would you be considered a spam site for being link thrifty? is that a word haha. The web is built on links its only normal to link out to sites.

Probably not, as a lot of major news sites didn't / don't link out much.

[Michael Martinez]

"Normal" is really whatever you want it to be.

[addz123]

"Normal" is really whatever you want it to be.

OK so if I want to make a site that's wholly funded by selling links for SEO, and I sell 20 links per post, that is normal?

I think linking to random, irrelevant sites could be a good indicator that a site is selling links, but then again news sites will constantly link to random sites that are part of the news story. Let's face it, Google HAS to find a way to devalue/penalise sites that sell links, so they must be using some sort of signals or external link frequency to look out for this.

[parttimepoker]

OK so if I want to make a site that's wholly funded by selling links for SEO, and I sell 20 links per post, that is normal?

I think linking to random, irrelevant sites could be a good indicator that a site is selling links, but then again news sites will constantly link to random sites that are part of the news story. Let's face it, Google HAS to find a way to devalue/penalise sites that sell links, so they must be using some sort of signals or external link frequency to look out for this.

There are a lot of other signals that are typically found on sites that sell links (poor content / dupe content / bad neighborhood / no brand signals / etc) so I don't know that G would have to focus specifically on a link signal like the one you describe in OP to find and devalue link sellers.

Like I said above, it's probably part of a signal group - if your site is already looking sketchy and you also have a weird linking pattern / unbalanced inbound / outbound ratio, then the ratio matters. If your site is otherwise solid, I don't think having a lot more outgoing than incoming will matter much, if at all.

One last thought: Link sellers tend to operate within certain genres, so lots of link sale sites wouldn't have "random" links - they'd have a pretty natural link pattern (albeit with highly focused + specific + unnatural anchors, which is probably the biggest signal to G out of everything).

[Michael Martinez]

I don't know how Google decides which sites are selling links but if I were going to sell links I would not build a site that looks like all the other sites selling links and I would not put the links where they could be distinguished from unsold links.