the value of out bound links for your SEO

When we talk SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and links most people forget about the true value of an out bound link, and hardly anybody optimises their out bound links.

This is a BIG MISTAKE as your out bound links are used to determine your authority and willingness to share data. Very often linking your pages directly to your oppositions pages pushes your pages right to the top of the pile within the SERPs (Search Engine Results Positions /Pages)

Why? well the answer is simple, search engines are there to make sharing of information easier and better, those that help get rewarded, those that hide their stuff get punished. its that simple.

The search engines use your out bound links in strange and sneaky ways, giving points for a variety of things in your links. Some of them are included in the list below, but this is very incomplete as search engines gaurd their algos (Algorithms) with great security and many traps.

Info for hard core SEO Specialists that worry about fractions of points . follows..
value of out bound links are influenced by 

• Where they originate in  your page
• how the content around the position of your out bound link in your page corresponds with the key words listed in the META tags of the site where the link is pointed to, if they even have a keyword list in their meta tags.
• How deep into the linked site your link will land
• How deep into your site the out going link comes from, often deeper links score much better and have more influence on a variety of related search issues connected with your site as a whole.
• does your link have a book mark attached, if it does you will be surprised at the extra score it gives your site as a whole. links with bookmarks are very uncommon, but do amazing things for your site, coz it shows that you have visited the target site and followed their internal links to specific points within the target site. search engines like it when you use bookmarks, even internal links with book marks add to your score considerably.
• what extra attribute you have given your out bound link within the <a href> tags such as <title> <purpose|> and others that are exceptionally sneaky and not always recognized or supported. careful how and where they are used. avoid black hat tactics at all costs here....  remember to nest these very securely, try these on pages of your testing domain so if the search engines get upset you have not lost too much, just your time and evaluation efforts.
• each out bound link adds value to an accumulative total for your site as a whole, this influences your site score, which is used in the search engines algo (algorithm) to determine your individual page score, which again influences your word score that is used to calculate your site score. so a small change can have a big impact as the algo is repeated (reiterated) till it settles out at a value as determined by the strange mathematical equation that uses a wide variety of techniques including calculus and binary combinations with cut off levels and direction switching pointers that have impacts on other parts of the algo.
• The various meta tags on the page where your link originates have an impact on the values associated with individual words within the content section near to where your link originates, which impact on the score of your site as a whole, not just the page where the link originates, as these scores are fed into strange algos as mentioned above.

The points you get for  out bound links are critical when it comes to words that compete for position in search results. An example is the word "accommodation" as used in the holiday and tourism websites that offer accommodation packages of various types for the city of Durban South Africa. Every fraction of a point is critical, as a search in Google for "accommodation" done at 14 h 49 on 12 July 2012 revealed that there were about  423,000,000 results. Getting to the top of that pile will take some serious effort and the points scored for out bound links will make a big difference to your pages position in SERPS (Search Engine Results pages)

Tip  for good SEO : --
1) optimise your out bound links with more care and you will get better SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions)
2) use the KEY WORDS META TAG it helps build your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) points in other areas that REALLY COUNT.
3) be careful of who you listen to, and do some personal testing to verify what others tell you. see this video http://www.metatags.org/google_ignores_meta_tags_in_ranking  and think!!!

read this post http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2012/07/meta-tag-confusion.html