What Is Link Equity? How Authority Moves Between Pages
DICTIONARY · SEO

What Is Link Equity?

Link equity is the ranking value a link passes to the page it points at, and it moves through your site the same way it arrives.

In plain English

Value arrives from external links and then flows through internal links to other pages. Which pages you link to, and from where, decides how it is distributed.

Equity is also lost. Broken links, redirect chains, noindexed pages and orphaned content all leak value that has already been earned.

What to know

It arrives
External links bring value to the page they point at.
It flows
Internal links pass it on. Pages linked from everywhere accumulate the most.
It leaks
404s, long redirect chains and orphaned pages waste it.
It survives redirects
A single 301 preserves most of it. A chain of them does not.

Why it matters

Link equity explains why internal linking and redirect hygiene produce results without any new content. You are redistributing and recovering value that already exists, which is the cheapest form of SEO available.

Common mistakes

×Deleting pages with links instead of redirecting them.
×Redirect chains built up over years of migrations.
×Concentrating all internal links on the homepage.
×Leaving valuable pages with no internal links pointing at them.

FAQs

Is link equity the same as PageRank?

It is the practical version of the same idea. The original metric is no longer published.

Do redirects lose value?

A single well-implemented 301 loses very little. Chains and soft 404s lose a lot.

WRITTEN BY TARIQ SALLAM
Marketing Consultant. Entrepreneur. Content Creator.

I'm a marketing consultant, entrepreneur and content creator. I help businesses grow through practical marketing, websites, SEO, content and AI.

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