Link Equity Explained: How Ranking Value Flows Between Pages
Link equity is the SEO name for the ranking value that one page passes to another through a link. You'll also hear it called "link juice", which is less formal and means the same thing. The idea comes from Google's original PageRank model, where every page had a score and passed a share of it along each of its outbound links. Google stopped showing public PageRank scores long ago, but it has said that PageRank is still one of its signals, and the concept of value flowing through links remains the most useful way to think about how backlinks and internal links work together.
The basic model
In the simplified PageRank picture:
- A page has a certain amount of value, mostly from the links pointing to it.
- It passes a portion of that value through each followed link on the page.
- The more links on the page, the smaller the share each one gets.
- The receiving pages add up all the value arriving from their links.
The real system is much more complex, and Google doesn't share how it weights things now. But this model explains several things you can see in practice. A link from a page that has strong links itself is worth more. A link from a page with hundreds of outbound links is worth less. And value that reaches your site can be passed on to other pages through internal links.
What affects how much equity a link passes
The linking page's own strength
A page on a well-linked, trusted site passes more value than a page nobody links to. Note that this is page-level. A deep, orphaned page on a famous site may pass less than a popular page on a modest blog.
Relevance
Google's systems look at the topic of the linking page and the text around the link. A link that fits the context is a stronger signal than one that seems random.
Number of outbound links
Every additional link on the page dilutes the share each link receives, at least in the original model. A guest post with two outbound links is a better spot than a "resources" page with 300.
Position and link type
Links in main content are generally treated as more meaningful than boilerplate links in footers and sidebars. See contextual backlinks.
rel attributes
Links marked nofollow, sponsored or ugc are hints to Google not to pass equity. Assume they pass little or none.
Redirects
301 redirects pass link value to the new URL. Google has said that 3xx redirects don't cause PageRank loss, so you don't need to fear redirecting old URLs. Long redirect chains are still worth cleaning up for crawling and speed.
Things that waste link equity
- Links to broken pages. If other sites link to a page on your site that now returns a 404, that value goes nowhere. Redirect those URLs to the closest relevant live page. The broken link checker helps find broken links on your pages.
- Orphan pages. A page with no internal links pointing to it receives no internal equity at all.
- Noindexed or blocked targets. Pointing internal links at pages blocked in robots.txt sends value somewhere Google can't use it.
- Lost backlinks. Links disappear over time; lost backlinks and link rot covers how to recover some of them.
How to direct equity to the pages you want to rank
Most sites earn backlinks to a few pages: the homepage, a popular guide, a viral post or a free tool. The pages that make money, like service pages, product categories or a pricing page, often get very few. Internal links are how you bridge that gap.
Take a Shopify store selling Indian spices. Its most-linked page is a blog post about the health benefits of turmeric that food sites love to cite. The product category for turmeric powder has almost no links. Adding a clear, relevant link from that blog post to the category page passes some of that earned equity to the page that actually sells. Doing the same from the homepage and the main menu helps further.
Practical steps:
- Find your most-linked pages in a backlink tool (look for "best by links" or "top pages" reports).
- For each, list one to three related money pages.
- Add contextual internal links from the strong page to those money pages with descriptive anchor text.
- Make sure your key pages are reachable within a few clicks from the homepage.
The fuller version of this lives in our internal linking strategy guide.
Myths to drop
- PageRank sculpting with nofollow. Adding nofollow to internal links used to be a way to "concentrate" equity. Google changed how it handles this many years ago, and the value of a nofollowed link isn't redistributed to the others. It just disappears.
- Never linking out. Linking to good external sources doesn't drain your site in any meaningful way. Useful outbound links are a normal part of good content.
- Domain-level equity only. Links point to pages. Domain-wide scores are a third-party shorthand, not how Google describes it.
The first thing to fix
Find the three pages on your site with the most referring domains. Check whether each one links to at least one of your important commercial pages. If not, add one relevant contextual link from each this week. It's one of the few SEO changes that uses links you already have.