Too many outbound links = Bad SEO?

[element01]

I read somewhere that too many outbound links can get you penalized by Google for looking like 'spam'.

Unfortunatly, it failed to mention how many outbound links it takes to look like spam in the eyes of Google!

Now, I'm worried. I have a new 'one page' website, that I am trying to fully optimise, but I don't want to risk being penalized as a result of having too many outbound links.

Could anyone give me a guesstimate of how many outbound links on a single page would be 'acceptable'?

Cheers.

[Stevie D]

If it looks like the main purpose of your site is to give outbound links then that could be a problem.

If it looks like the main purpose of your site is to provide content or a service, and you've included some helpful links to other sites as part of that, you should be fine.

In particular, if the outbound links are all to sites that are related to the same field, and are all different sites on different servers run by different people, that shouldn't trigger any red flags.

[Zorro D]

In my opinion, No, too many outbound links are not bad for SEO.
Wikipedia has so many outbound reference links, its ranking good.

If your content demands reference links, you have to put them... there is no other alternate.

If backlinks are going to authority websites, they cannot harm your rankings in any way.

[felgall]

The sites with the most outbound links tend to be the ones that are the most popular because they provide people with a way to find all the other sites.

You will make your own site more sticky with visitors if you link to all the other related sites that they are likely to want to visit to get the parts of what they are looking for that are not covered in as much depth on your site.

[webcosmo]

As long as you link out to related sites thats be ok.

You should link out to help your readers of course.

[alpha_q21]

Too many outbound links are definitely bad for your website. It will transfer reputation of your website to others and also look like spam and google can penalize it. If your page has 40-50 outbound links then it's ok.

[imran.fuuast]

it all depends on your site relevancy, if you have tech website and you did off page like social bokomark on other topics then it definitely create some penalties..

[jamesjohn]

if you want to give related resources link to your readers, you should create seprate resource, but all related links from sidebar or from particular page, will be harmful for ranking as well page rank. this may affect for bounce rate of your website.

[VideoWhisper]

To better understand this, imagine you have 3 pages on same topic:
1. relevant text and containing links to external relevant pages
2. relevant text and linked one way from external relevant websites
3. relevant text and relevant link exchange both ways with same external sites

Which do you think search engines will consider more reputable to return for a search query?

I think #2.

[nicktyler]

Somewhere in the Google webmaster guidelines it mentions to not have more than 100 links on a page internal or otherwise but I can't find the link to it at the moment. Maybe someone else knows allready or I'll have a better look if you like?

[imran.fuuast]

Somewhere in the Google webmaster guidelines it mentions to not have more than 100 links on a page internal or otherwise but I can't find the link to it at the moment. Maybe someone else knows allready or I'll have a better look if you like?

then facebook must be penalized by google lol

[nicktyler]

Probably Facebook have so much else going on having a positive effect that it far outwieghs the small negative impact of having too many links on a page.

[Michel32]

It's not bad, depending on the quality of the back links. Don't get to many links from sites who put your links site wide! Also I would say it's better to get back links from related places as much as you can.

[webgain]

you must read the google policies.
too much Outbound links are dangerous. A page must have 30 outbound links in average.

[r937]

you must read the google policies.

would you kindly provide a link to the page where google says "too much Outbound links are dangerous. A page must have 30 outbound links in average."

because quite frankly i think you're just making that up

[webgain]

would you kindly provide a link to the page where google says "too much Outbound links are dangerous. A page must have 30 outbound links in average."

because quite frankly i think you're just making that up

I didn't said google said this. I advised you to read google policies.

outbound links are dangerous because if you keep too much outbound links in a page, google marks that page as spam and basically google says to keep 100 outbound links in a page but for a good strength page these links should be in average.

read here: googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/10/linking-out-often-its-just-applying.html

[r937]

read here: googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/10/linking-out-often-its-just-applying.html

i read that, and it does not say anything like "if you keep too much outbound links in a page, google marks that page as spam"

it does say "Relevant outbound links can help your visitors" and "Unmonitored (especially user-generated) links ... can reduce your site's credibility"

the conclusion i reach from this is that good outbound links cannot hurt you, no matter how many of them you have, whereas allowing spam links on your page can hurt you

quite a different conclusion from yours

[Michel32]

It's not bad, depending on the quality of the back links. Don't get to many links from sites who put your links site wide! Also I would say it's better to get back links from related places as much as you can.

I understood the original question wrong, it was kinda late last night.

I would try not to get more than 20 external links to other sites, otherwise Google might think you sell links or are a link farm. Google likes outgoing links to authority sites though, like Wikipedia.

[Jeff Collision]

Outbound links are not bad, at following cases:
Relevant link which adds more information for your visitors.
Relevant link which links to high quality sites.

But linking to low quality and banned site definitely hurts your ranking.

[Beric]

We run a commercial website Nike Sneaker, Superdry, Fox Racing und Streetwear günstig kaufen im - Online Shop Fabfive24 and changing from OS Commerce to Magento. We are focused on the facebook generation ( 12- 30 yrs). I am thinking to place the facebook likes see (Volcom at Zumiez : BP) and maybe the Google Plus 1 Button under each product in all category pages and brand pages. Are there to may outgoing links? and will that weaken the main page as It has the highest PR?

But on the other hand if someone is "liking" the item it will be published on there friends list and will be seen by hundreds of possible future costumers?

My question is, does Google or any other search engine penalize that and will that be bad for my website. And if I use the Google + 1 Button it does slower the site! So any suggestions and solutions?

Thanks
Beric

[keyideas]

Yes, using so many unrelated outbond links may be a cause of banned by search engines

[Beric]

But that would be at the max 40 outbound links to a single Site like Facebook!

[jamesjohn]

I got your point. See if all link are resources, whose image or content you are using, than you can add his link.

But if you just want to all outbound links, like you were been paid for links or got link exchange, on the page, where is not much good content, it may harm you. If you have good content on web page, you can add some outbound links. just like reciprocal link exchange.

[eBusinessiReader]

In my opinion.
Articles with relatelink to external sites that have related content.
quality of the article seems to have increased even more.
Because they facilitate for the reader to get more news content. It was generous.
If I say that we have outbound links to lower ranking.
It sounds funny.