What Is Link Equity? Definition and Why It Matters
Link equity — sometimes called link juice — is the value a link passes. Here's how it flows and what affects it.
Link equity (informally “link juice”) is the shorthand link builders use for the authority or trust that a link is understood to pass from the linking page to the page it points to. It isn’t a number you can look up on a page; it’s a concept for talking about how links influence what ranks, built on the older idea behind PageRank.
What determines how much a link is worth
- The authority and trust of the linking page and the domain it sits on.
- Topical relevance between the linking page and the page being linked to.
- Where the link sits — inside the body of the content carries more weight than a footer or sidebar (footer links, sitewide links).
- Link attributes — a nofollow or sponsored tag is a hint not to pass ranking value (rel attributes explained).
- How many other outbound links share the same page; a link surrounded by dozens of others typically carries less individual weight than one of three.
How equity moves through a site
Between domains
When another site links to you, some of that page’s authority is understood to flow to your page. That’s the basic mechanic behind buying or earning a placement.
Inside your own site
Equity that lands on one of your pages doesn’t stop there — it can continue through your own internal links to other pages, which is why linking from your strongest, most-linked pages to the pages you actually want to rank is a real lever (internal links and backlinks).
Through redirects
A 301 redirect is generally treated as passing the value of the old URL on to the new one, which is why reclaiming old pages that still attract backlinks — rather than letting them 404 — recovers value that would otherwise be wasted (fixing 404 backlinks).
Common mistakes
| Mistake | What happens |
|---|---|
| Letting old, linked-to pages 404 | Backlinks pointing at them stop passing any value. |
| Burying important pages deep in navigation | Internal equity struggles to reach them. |
| Assuming every placement passes equal value | A link buried in a low-traffic, irrelevant footer passes far less than a contextual one on a relevant page. |
A worked example
Picture a publisher’s homepage that has built up genuine authority over years. A guest post accepted on that site, with a link placed inside the article body pointing to a client’s product page, passes meaningfully more equity than the same link would on a brand-new blog with no history. If the client’s site then internally links from its own popular blog posts to that product page, some of the incoming equity continues onward, compounding the effect rather than stopping at the page that first received the link.
Why you can’t measure link equity directly
There’s no dashboard, public or private, that shows you the exact amount of equity a given link passes. Search engines don’t publish that figure, and the third-party metrics people use as proxies — domain authority scores, trust scores, and similar — are estimates of overall link-based strength, not a per-link equity reading. That’s part of why experienced link builders talk in terms of relevance, placement and source quality instead of trying to quantify equity precisely; the concept is directional, not numeric.
Practical signals to use instead
- Does the source page rank for its own relevant keywords, suggesting search engines already trust it?
- Does the source page get organic traffic, rather than existing only to host outbound links?
- Is the link one of a handful on the page, or one of dozens competing for the same passed value?
Building a site structure that uses equity well
Beyond acquiring links, how you structure your own site affects how far incoming equity travels. Pages with strong incoming links that themselves link out generously to relevant internal pages spread that advantage further than a site where valuable pages sit isolated with no internal links pointing to anything else. Reviewing your internal linking whenever you land a strong new backlink is a small habit that compounds over time.
A simple audit routine worth adopting
Once a quarter, or after any noticeably strong new placement lands, walk through your own site the way a new visitor would: start at the page that just received the backlink and see where its internal links actually lead. If that page links mainly to low-priority content, or barely links internally at all, you’re leaving equity on the table. Redirecting even a small share of that internal linking toward pages you’re actively trying to rank — a commercial category page, a pricing page, or a cornerstone guide — is one of the cheapest optimisations available, since it needs no new outreach or spend at all, just a rework of existing links.
Where to go next
Read what a backlink is if you’re starting from scratch, compare authority metrics with DR vs DA, or browse the marketplace for sites with genuine link equity to pass on.
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Frequently asked questions
Is link juice a real, measurable thing?
It's an informal name for the idea that links pass value between pages. The underlying concept, drawn from PageRank, is real, but there's no public score you can check.
Do nofollow links pass link equity?
They carry a hint not to. Search engines may still consider them in some contexts, but you shouldn't rely on a nofollow link for ranking value.
Can too many outbound links on one page dilute equity?
Yes, conceptually — value passed by a page is generally understood to be shared among its outbound links, so a page with very few links passes more per link.
Does fixing a broken backlink recover lost value?
Redirecting an old, linked-to URL to its replacement is the standard way to recover equity that would otherwise be lost to a 404.
Put it into practice
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