Link Equity — What It Is and How Authority Flows
What is link equity?
Link equity (formerly "link juice") is the SEO value that one URL passes to another through a hyperlink. When a high-authority page links to your site, a portion of its authority "flows" to the target page, strengthening its position in the SERP.
Link equity is the fundamental mechanism of the PageRank algorithm, which Google uses to assess page importance.
How does link equity flow?
Link equity is divided equally among all links on a page. If a page has 10 outgoing links, each link passes approximately 1/10 of the authority.
Factors affecting the amount of equity transferred:
- Domain Rating of the linking page — a stronger domain = more equity
- Link position — link in content > link in sidebar > link in footer
- Rel attribute — dofollow passes equity, nofollow does not (but Google treats it as a hint)
- Number of links on the page — fewer links = more equity per link
- Topical relevance — a link from a topically related page carries more weight
- Anchor text — the anchor text signals the topic of the target page
Link equity and internal linking
Internal linking is the simplest way to distribute link equity within a site. Pages that receive many backlinks (e.g., the homepage) should link to strategically important subpages — this way you "distribute" authority where you need it.
Best practices
- Link from strong pages to weak ones — check in Ahrefs which pages have the most backlinks
- Avoid redirect chains — each 301 redirect loses approximately 10-15% of equity
- Do not block important pages — robots.txt and noindex block equity flow
- Flat site architecture — the closer to the homepage, the more equity reaches the page
Related Terms
- Backlink — an inbound link from another site
- Internal linking — internal linking
- Domain Rating — domain link profile strength
- Nofollow — attribute limiting authority transfer