{"id":16494,"date":"2021-09-29T13:46:56","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T13:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/?p=16494"},"modified":"2023-12-05T11:24:19","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T11:24:19","slug":"referral-traffic-not-contribute-link-equity-confirms-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/referral-traffic-not-contribute-link-equity-confirms-google\/","title":{"rendered":"Referral traffic does not contribute to link equity, confirms Google"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are multiple factors that come into play when Google determines how much weight a backlink is to be assigned. However, referral traffic is not one of those factors.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was confirmed by Google\u2019s John Mueller when he was asked if the equity of a backlink increases based on how much traffic it sends to the other domain during a recent Google Search Central SEO hangout.<\/span><\/p>\n

John didn\u2019t take long to confirm that it\u2019s not a factor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t use things like traffic through a link when trying to evaluate how a link should be valued. As far as I know, we don\u2019t look at things like the probability that someone will click on a link with regards to how we should value it.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

After the straightforward response, John Mueller elaborated on why referral traffic does not affect the equity of a backlink.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spoiler: it\u2019s because backlinks are mainly just references.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause sometimes links are essentially just references and it\u2019s not so much that we expect people to click on every link on a page. But if someone is referring to your site and saying like \u2013 I\u2019m doing this because this expert here said to do that \u2013 then people are not going to click on that link and always look at your site and confirm whatever is written there.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

But they\u2019ll see it as almost like a reference. It\u2019s like if they needed to find out more information they could go there, but they don\u2019t need to. And from that point of view, I don\u2019t think we would be taking that into consideration when it comes to evaluating the value of a link.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In the end, John shared more information regarding how Google passes link equity from one domain to another, especially in the context of PageRank.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look into how PageRank works, it\u2019s a bit different nowadays how we handle that. But essentially, the idea behind that is that in general, with PageRank you set up some value for the individual pages, and then you pass a fraction of that value on through the links there.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

If the page is seen as being very high value, then the links from there will be treated with a little bit more weight compared to some random page on the internet.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

As as I know, we don\u2019t do it exactly the same way as things were in the beginning with regards to PageRank, but it\u2019s a good way of thinking about that.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Here is a timestamped video<\/span><\/a> if you want to check out the full conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are multiple factors that come into play when Google determines how much weight a backlink is to be assigned. However, referral traffic is not one of those factors. This was confirmed by Google\u2019s John Mueller when he was asked if the equity of a backlink increases based on how much traffic it sends to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":17321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oct_exclude_from_cache":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[33,22],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nReferral Traffic & Link Equity | MSR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There are multiple factors that come into play when Google determines how much weight a backlink has, however, referral traffic is not one.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/referral-traffic-not-contribute-link-equity-confirms-google\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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