What’s an external link?

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Outlinks are links on a website that direct visitors to other sites. They can be beneficial for SEO and marketing, but some worry about losing visitors. Using code to open links in a new page can help. Outlinks can also be used for referencing and quoting sources.

An outlink is HTML code on your site that allows site visitors to access other sites. These are often simply called links. Whenever people may click a link on a site that takes them somewhere else, particularly off your site, you’ve provided an external link. There is some question about the value of external links. Sometimes people claim they are a problem because they drive people off their sites. Others, especially in the world of search engine optimization (SEO) and content writing, know that outlinks are an important reciprocal gesture.

The outlink must be distinct from an inlink. Inlink is a hyperlink on someone else’s site that directs people to your page/pages. Essentially this means that every outlink you provide on your site is an inlink for someone else. A good ratio of outlinks to inlinks helps raise your site’s profile, but more importantly, inlinks to your site help increase your page’s ranking with search engines. However, in many cases, if you don’t link to others on your page, they are unlikely to link to you, so outlinking is an important marketing tool.

One way to avoid worrying about people permanently leaving your site following external links is to use a specific code that opens the link in a new page. This is a bit more complex than the standard HTML hyperlink formula, but it may be worth the effort because people didn’t leave your page and instead just opened a new window to view the link.

Your basic link looks like this: wiseGEEK which will display like this: wiseGEEK . An outlink that opens a new page has the words target=”_blank” appended immediately after the website address and before the closing diagonal bracket (>). This additional code can be a useful resource if you want to keep people viewing your pages, but also direct them to other related sites.

Most people who want to exchange links with you are happy to do so, no matter how you write the code. They don’t care if the link opens a new page or takes people off your page entirely. Therefore it makes sense for your outlinks to open new pages, as the longer people stay on your page, especially on content-generated websites, the more likely they are to watch and also visit any web sponsors, who can help support your page. .

Another reason to provide external links is if you are quoting web material. You will commonly see them on sites like Wikipedia. They are the academic way to back up and reference your material and also show that you haven’t plagiarized. If you are writing scholarly works and quoting other people at length, consider including a bibliography with an external link to any source that can be found on the Internet.




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