Link equity

Where the idea comes from

Google's original PageRank treated each link as a share of the linking page's score. A strong page with few outbound links passed a lot to each target. A weak page or one with hundreds of links passed little to each. Modern ranking is far more complex, but the core idea still explains a lot of what people see.

What increases or reduces it

Pages that are linked to a lot, and are relevant to the target, pass more. Links in the main content tend to count more than boilerplate links repeated on every page. A nofollow, ugc or sponsored link passes little or none. A noindexed page, a page blocked in robots.txt or a page that redirects through long chains can lose most of it.

Inside your own site, link equity flows through internal links. Linking from your homepage and hubs to your most important pages tells search engines what matters. Sitewide links into pages that are noindexed waste that flow.

Practical takeaways

Get links to pages that are indexable. Keep redirects to one hop. Link your strongest pages to the ones you want to rank. Do not hide internal links behind nofollow. Remove or fix broken internal links, because a link to a 404 passes nothing.

Example

A guide that ranks well links to your free tool. Some of the guide's strength flows to the tool page, and the tool page's internal links pass part of it on to your pricing page.

Questions people ask

Does a 301 redirect keep link equity?

Google says 301 and 308 redirects pass ranking signals. Long chains and redirects to unrelated pages can still lose value, so redirect each old URL straight to its closest new page.