🔍 SEO / GEO

Link Juice / Link Equity

link juice · link equity · pagerank · link authority · ranking power · linkjuice

Definition

Link juice is the total authority passed to a domain or page through inbound hyperlinks; one of the key factors determining a site's ability to rank for competitive queries.

Where link equity comes from

The concept goes back to the original PageRank algorithm (Brin and Page, 1998). The idea: a page is
important if other important pages link to it. The final rank is a recursive function over the link
graph of the entire web.

Google does not publish the formula behind modern PageRank, but the key principles hold:

Every page carries a certain amount of link equity
Outbound links divide that equity between all the links on the page
Pages with many links from authoritative sources accumulate more equity
That equity is what makes competitive queries winnable

How the distribution works

Page A (DR 70) links to pages B, C, D
→ each of B, C, D receives roughly 70 / 3 = ~23 notional units of equity

Page B links only to page E
→ E receives the whole ~23 units

Page C carries rel="nofollow" on its link to page F
→ F receives nothing; the equity on that link is effectively burned

Important: adding nofollow to a link does not redistribute its equity to the other links on
the page — the equity is simply not passed. That is why it is better not to link to an irrelevant
resource at all than to link to it with nofollow.

Managing link equity on an e-commerce site

Internal linking

Sensible internal linking is the free way to control how equity is distributed. The principles:

The homepage is usually the most authoritative page, so links from it are the most valuable
A blog with strong articles should link to categories and product pages
Breadcrumbs are a working mechanism for passing equity up the catalogue hierarchy

External links

Source type	Value	How to earn it
Editorial mentions in the press	High	PR campaigns, expert commentary
Links from reviews and comparisons	High	Work with bloggers and review platforms
Directories and aggregators	Low	Basic presence in Google Business Profile and local directories
Private blog networks and link markets	Penalty risk	Do not use

For e-commerce the most effective route to link equity is unique data — original research and
statistics on shopper behaviour — that other resources cite naturally.

Frequently asked questions

How does rel="nofollow" affect link equity?

The rel="nofollow" attribute tells Google not to pass PageRank through that link. In practice the equity is simply lost — it goes neither to the destination page nor to the other links on the page. Since 2019 Google has treated nofollow as a hint rather than a directive, but nofollow links almost never pass PageRank in practice.

Does internal linking affect link equity?

Yes. Internal links redistribute PageRank between the pages of a site. A page that receives many internal links accumulates more equity. That is exactly why an internal link from an authoritative blog article to a category page strengthens that category's ranking.

Which sites give the most valuable links?

Three quality factors: the authority of the linking domain (Domain Rating or Domain Authority), topical relevance (a link from a cookery site to a cookery shop is worth more than one from an IT forum), and how organic the placement is (an editorial link in context beats a directory entry or a signature). One link from an authoritative publication is worth more than a thousand from a private blog network.

Does link equity decay over time?

A link that still exists still works. But if the linking resource loses authority — a Google penalty, a traffic collapse, the domain changing hands — the equity it passes falls with it. Audit the link profile periodically and disavow toxic links through Google's Disavow tool.