Digital marketing term
External Link
A link from your page to a different hostname. Use it to cite a source or send someone deeper—not as a ranking trick or a farm of outbound URLs that add noise.
Detailed explanation
You add them for citations, tools, legal texts, or a partner page. If they help the reader, they stay; stuffing a commercial exit into every sentence splits attention. A destination that 404s makes your page look weak too.
Paid outbound dumps, confused nofollow/dofollow, and “click here” anchors are typical misses. Hidden redirects that users do not expect read as manipulation. Tagging every exit with UTM can help reporting; treating internal links as external breaks it.
Crawl for broken outbound URLs, watch exit clicks, and see which sources people actually use. Cut directories and coupon farms that add nothing. The call is few, relevant, working URLs—not a link dump.
Frequently asked questions
- Do outbound links leak ranking power?
- Citing useful sources does not weaken a page. Paid or irrelevant exits do hurt readers and how the page feels.
- When does nofollow belong?
- Paid placements, user-generated dumps, or destinations you do not trust. Honest editorial citations do not require it.
Related terms
Internal links for the topic cluster — read these concepts together.
- BacklinkA backlink is a link from another website to your page; it is an important authority and discovery signal for search engines.
- Inbound LinksLinks on other websites that point to your pages—the same idea as backlinks. Links between your own URLs are internal links and do not count as inbound.
- Nofollow LinkA Nofollow Link is an HTML attribute added to a link that tells search engines not to pass authority, or link equity, through that link.
- SEOSEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the set of technical and content practices that help a website rank more visibly in organic search results.
- Anchor TextThe clickable words of a link, telling people and search engines what the destination is about. Internally they guide paths; on backlinks they carry a topical hint.
- Dead LinkA URL that no longer returns the resource, often as a 404 or a timeout. They collect in menus, emails, and body copy and quietly tax both crawl and trust.