Link juice is the currency of Google. In other words, it’s the secret sauce that allows you to beat your competitors for rankings in Google. Sure, there are some other factors that Google uses to calculate rankings (see Search Engine Optimization), but link juice is by far the most important aspect of dominating Google and in order to understand Google, you have to understand link juice.
Google looks at how sites link to each other to figure out which ones are the best. To show this in a way that’s understandable, let’s show a few examples. Let’s say that Site A and Site B are both about ’some keyword’ and would both like to rank for ’some keyword’.
Google is going to take a look at links to determine which of these two sites is likely the best. At the most basic level, let’s say that Site A gets a link from a site that Site B doesn’t get:
Site A now looks better to Google and will outrank Site B. Let’s say that Site C decides to link to Site B, as well:
Now they both look the same to Google, who will now have to look at another ranking factor to determine which one is the best. There are other factors but none of them is nearly as important as the link juice factor.
Let’s add two new sites into the mix to further illustrate different scenarios that can happen:
In the above example, we now have Site D linking to Site A and Site E linking to Site B. To figure out which site is better between Site A and Site B, Google will have to look at the sites that are linking to Site D and Site E:
In the above example, Site D has more link juice than Site E because it’s getting links from Site F, Site G, and Site H. That means that Site A has more link juice than Site B. Site A will therefore outrank Site B.
Google is able to map out link relationships on an enormous scale and that’s what makes them Google.
For competitive keywords, the ranking sites have millions of links from other sites who have hundreds of thousands of links from other sites who have links from other sites who have links from other sites.
There are also non-competitive keywords that would require very few links to get ranked #1 in Google. I have #1 rankings that were achieved because of one link. This happens because all of the other sites have zero links from other sites or they have links only from sites that have no juice.
Every keyword is different and if you want to rank #1 for your keyword, your job is to get more link juice than the other sites that currently show up for that keyword.
To increase your juice you need to get more links, especially from sites that have a lot of juice.
Tags: google, link juice, SEO
Best explanation ever! I’m really thinking about subscribing but I think after this post I’m interested to see whats in the academy!
Court,
Very good explanation of link juice. Straightforward and easy to understand. Also very true. Should help noobs out a lot in figuring out what people mean when they say “link juice”.
Thanks,
Trent
Those sites mean pages, actually. This simplified model works well unless page E is a homepage of a real authority site, e.g. New York Times. In such case, site B most probably outranks site A. If F, G, D and H are MMO blogs, “most probably” means “sure like hell”
Can you please explain what are MMO blogs……..
Superb presentation Court!
If you don’t mind – I might use your page to send my custoemrs to for better understanding of link manipulations.
Hi Court,
I’m struggling to understand a little better G’s mind when it comes to keyword ranking and there’s a question I wanted to ask.
At the moment I’m ranked #52 for a keyword in Google. My site is just 3 months old, and this is what I get from the SEO tool:
PR is “-”, traffic value 0, Y! links 79, Y! page links 31, Alexa ranking (if this means anything at all) 13,120,092. In G, doing a links: search, I have 12 links.
The page at #53 has: PR 4, age 04-1997, traffic value 127.203, Y! links 130.000, Y! page links 2, Alexa ranking 19.913. G links 9.
Almost all of #53’s figures are better. How come I’m better ranked?
Thanks in advance for your help
Hi, Andrea, #53 must get tons of traffic via other key phrases. Maybe their page is not optimized for that kayword. Maybe you´re in luck. Anyways. Why do you care about them? You should try to improve your rankings – #52 is as good as #286…
I had been hunting for such simple and easy to understand n remember definition of link juice for quite a long time. At last my search ended here. Your academy must be having lot more such info……..
Buzzintown Employee
thanks for the explanation, been trying to figure out what link juice means for a while. thanks again
What a brilliant explanation. I have tried long and hard to find an easy way to explain to clients why they didn’t rank high on Google and why they needed lots of inward links and why those links couldn’t just come from any old site. It is however one thing to know this stuff, quite another to do something about it
I’ve already signed up to Keyword Academy and am a premium member so I’ve an idea of just how much work it will be 
Still at least it pays 
beautiful! Ive been wondering for a few days what link juice is.
You explained a great algorithm in a very few steps. I really liked it.
Hi Friends Really Good information
if there is any books available in
the market.which explain such a concept
at the depth level.becoz it is very surface level.
my Blog-:
yourhealthcareonline.blog.com
anyway thnx for sharing
Sylvester carter
Great post! Very straight forward to understand!
It is really very useful.
Good explanation of the basics of ‘link juice’ . Does anyone know of google maps also gives you link juice or any google orhanic listing benefits?
As far as i am aware (and i am no expert), google maps is to help find local business listings and is not related to an organic search.
Amazing explanation about link juice with outstanding diagram..Thanks a lot
alot of searching and reading at last,i’ve stop here, this is the most simple staright to the point explanation, very easy to understand. tq again
i got 2 question here, hope somebody can explain
1. blogroll in your blog…does it consider a linkjuice?
2. blog B – having alot of link pointing to it, do i get linkjuice if i link to blog ‘B’