But a lot of this is just hearsay, backed by outdated approaches and misconceptions. So, we need to debunk these common myths and give you the information you need to understand whether or not there is any truth to it.
Myth 1: You should not link to other websites from your content
There's an old SEO myth that claims that outbound linking can hurt your site's search rankings by diluting your site's PageRank. It's based on the outdated belief that outbound links act as "PageRank depleters."
As mentioned in an article by Pratik Dholakiya :
It wasn't long before SEOs began to hypothesize that linking to other sites could hurt your PageRank; the idea was that you lost a bit of PageRank by linking to other sources, perhaps giving their page a boost at the expense of yours.
— Pratik Dholakiya
Let's not forget that PageRank is based on that exact concept of linking one website to another; it is the foundation on which Google is built.
Many publishers (as well as other content creators) often avoid linking out for the simple reason that Google is known to apply a manual penalty for "unnatural links from your site." This has led to some fear among publishers and the phone code philippines misconception that the safest thing to do is not to link out.
But in most cases, it's taken wildly out of context; Google is only referring to those who engage in link schemes. Google refers to this action and states that it applies if they "detect a pattern of unnatural, artificial, manipulated, or deceptive outbound links on your site."
They also go on to state that this penalty only applies to those who "buy links or participate in link schemes to manipulate PageRank in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines."
For the vast majority of content creators, outbound links should be used to cite sources without any concern and avoiding them is not the appropriate course of action.
Just make sure you choose who you link to carefully and that the link adds value.
Myth 2: Outbound links must use the rel="nofollow" attribute
Another common myth is that all outbound links to your site should use the rel="nofollow" attribute . It also stems from the fact that Google is known to penalize for unnatural outbound links .
Google does not penalize sites for linking to other sources. But these manual actions a
re there to help keep the web clean.
If a site sells links to others or has issues with user-generated content (usually comments) spamming backlinks (placing unnatural outbound links), these actions could occur.
A link to another site should be placed editorially because the author of the content wants to cite a source or help the reader navigate to another place on the web. For this reason, most outbound links, which are natural, do not need to use the rel="nofollow" attribute.
We can say that: