An outbound link, also called an external link, is a link on one of your pages that leads to a page on someone else’s site. It is the opposite of an internal link, which stays within your own site. Outbound links are how the web is stitched together: citations, sources, partners, tools, social profiles and adverts are all outbound links.
Why they matter
Every outbound link sends your reader, and often a little of your page’s standing in search, to a site you do not control. That site can change. A page you linked to as a helpful reference can disappear, be sold, be taken over or turn into something you would never recommend. Because nobody revisits old posts, outbound links are where problems build up quietly. They are also where hackers add spam, since an injected link is, by definition, an outbound one.
What Link Signals collects
For each page in your sitemap, Link Signals collects every http or https link that goes to another domain, ignoring www, and removes the # fragment. The same destination is merged into one entry per scan: it is treated as hidden if any copy is hidden, and as followed if any copy is followed. Links that a script writes into the page are collected too, because that is a common way for injected links to arrive.
| Counted | Skipped |
|---|---|
| Links to other domains | Links within your own domain, with or without www |
| Pages, articles, shops, profiles | Links to images, PDFs, zip files, video, audio, CSS, JavaScript and fonts |
| Links marked nofollow, sponsored or ugc, which are recorded as such | Links that are not http or https, such as email and phone links |
Each destination is then judged on where it leads: whether it is on a blocklist, whether it loads, whether the domain is registered, and whether it fits the page. The result is a verdict.
Common misunderstandings
- A subdomain such as
shop.example.comis a different host fromexample.com, so a link between them is collected as outbound. - A link to an image or PDF on another site is skipped, but the page that embeds it is not.
- Having many outbound links is not a fault. What matters is that each one still goes somewhere you would stand behind.
Questions
Do outbound links hurt my rankings?
Links to good, relevant sites are normal. Links to spam, or ones that pass credit to sites you cannot vouch for, are the concern. The rel attribute is how you mark links you do not vouch for.
Why is a link on my page missing from the report?
It may be internal, point to a file type that is skipped, or sit on a page that was not read. Large sitemaps are read as a sample when they exceed your plan.
Run a scan and find where these show up on your own site.
