How do external links effect articles?

1. 94

   Shesabutterflyposted 6 years ago

   I'm wondering how articles are effected when they are linked to by outside websites. I'm assuming if the other website is a good site article views should rise. Are there any negatives to having articles being linked to, especially if the site doing the linking is not a good one?
   
   As a general rule I don't link to outside sources or articles unless necessary. I will occasionally link to my own articles if they contain useful information or are directly related, but more often than not I do not use links. I tend to find linking and all the rules hard to remember, so I try to avoid it when possible. I found a website that has linked to my article and am curious how this could effect it once the website is acquired by Maven.
   
   Currently the website has not brought me many views (65 for a few days over a year ago, roughly around the time it was stolen) and I don't expect it to once the site launches on Maven, but I'd like to have a heads up if something negative or potentially positive could come from this.
   
   I've been searching Google and didn't find anything extremely negative, but most of my research was in regards to if I was doing the linking. Are there any benefits to being linked in this way? Could my page lose rank on Google? Are there other things I should be worried about? For my article the author did not claim to own the works within the link (unlike some of the others), so I think I should be okay in regards to any copyright issues. Could my article actually see more traffic once this website becomes launched by the Maven network? I've heard Maven is suppose to bring our views up, but I haven't noticed any upticks in traffic yet, so I'm wondering if this website would be different as they would actually be on Maven.
   
   I have not been keeping up with the whole Maven thing since learning that we should not be moving to the platform, but decided I was going to see what the site itself looked like now that it's been a few weeks. I noticed that Maven is acquiring craftgossip.com. This site has in the past stole articles from HP, and now currently has over 20 hp and niche site articles linked throughout the website. I was looking around the site and noticed that one of my articles that they had previously stolen was put back on the site, but instead of having my article word for word the "author" wrote a short introduction paragraph and simply linked to my article. Many of the "articles" on craftgossip are set up this way. One or two paragraphs with a link to a site that has the actual information. After further digging, I've noticed a good number of Maven sites are set up this way (very link heavy with little original content), so I'm not surprised they aquired craftgossip.

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2. 95

   DrMark1961posted 6 years ago

   If your article has numerous incoming links it will achieve better page rank on the search engines and you will get better traffic. If you go to the hub, look up the stats, and then check the overview, HP uses a star system to record the number of incoming links. If you have 5 stars, great. Your article has many incoming links, Google will notice and improve your page rank, and you will likely have good page views if the subject is searched for. (My articles that have good traffic have all been linked to many times.)
   If you have one star it means that you do not have many incoming links--people are not linking their blogs and other articles to your article and your page rank will reflect that. Your traffic will be less than optimal.
   If the links are natural there are no negatives that I am aware of. If you go to the link sites and buy links then Google might notice this and your page will have a lower page rank.
   I am not qualified to answer your questions on Maven.

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   1. 94

      Shesabutterflyposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      This is very helpful thank you! I've noticed the stars before, but didn't know exactly what they meant or what they were used for.
      
      Do you know if mulitple facebook or pinterest shares would create more than one star? I know the shares would all be within the same platform, but would each share or reshare be it's own link and therefore helping to increase the number of stars I would get? As far as I can tell my top performing article traffic wise has only been shared on these two platforms and it has 5 stars. I'm assuming if the article was linked somewhere else online my traffic sources should reflect that? Although it sounds like incoming links even if they don't bring in traffic would still be helpful and raise stars?

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      1. 89

         lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Incoming links do not always bring in traffic. But if they are on a good website they do help your article rank better.

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      2. 95

         DrMark1961posted 6 years agoin reply to this

         I think Google and HP have a very different system. I have 5 stars on one artilce that has about 30,000 visits from Pinterest, but according to Marisa Wright Google will only count 2 links per site so that page has terrible page rank. It has few links to other sites except Pinterest and Facebook. So, according to Google that page only has four incoming links, and is not doing well.

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         1. 89

            lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            Google doesn't just count two links. They consider them all. But the relevance to the linked page from the linking page matters.

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            1. 95

               DrMark1961posted 6 years agoin reply to this

               So if the links are from Pinterest or Facebook, which are not very relevant to my articles, they have little importance to Google?

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               1. 89

                  lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  What you get from social media are not links. They are social signals

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            2. 94

               Shesabutterflyposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               I find this very interesting. Is there a way to see what sites/blogs/social media sites have shared or linked to a specific article? One of my articles has 5 stars and is on the first page of Google, but the only traffic I get from it are Google, pinterest, and the occasional facebook and delishably. I'm wondering if I would possibly have other links on a different site that simply are not directing traffic, or if the aforementioned sites would be enough to give the article 5 stars. I found a site that is suppose to show me how many shares a certain link has from different media sites, but it doesn't show if any other websites have linked to my article or not.

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               1. 89

                  lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  Majestic and semrush show you links to a page. They are paid to use though.

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