Site architecture
Link equity
Link equity is the authority passed through a link from one page to another.
What is link equity?
Link equity is the authority passed through a link from one page to another. It is what makes links a ranking signal, and it is distributed by the link pattern rather than spread evenly.
Why this is worth knowing
It explains why a page with many relevant inbound links from strong pages outranks an equally good page with none.
What the work looks like
Managed by linking deliberately: hub pages concentrating it, commercial pages receiving it, and links to redirects and errors eliminated because they leak it.
The common misunderstanding
Third-party authority scores are proprietary estimates, not the mechanism. They are useful for comparison and should not be treated as the signal itself.
Most disagreements about this turn out to be disagreements about the definition.
Where this comes up in the work
It is part of Entity and Semantic SEO, and more specifically of Semantic internal linking. Across the rest of the work it shows up in:
- Entity and Semantic SEO, where it decides giving every page a route in from a relevant hub
- Local SEO, where getting it wrong shows up in finding out which of the listings are duplicates and which are the real one
- Ecommerce SEO, where it sets the ceiling on getting the structured data to match the price the customer will actually pay
- Digital PR and Link Building, where it is the difference between auditing the link profile for the ones that will become liabilities working and appearing to
What to check
Two questions that establish whether this is actually in order on a given site:
- Whether it is the same for a returning visitor as for a first-time one
- Whether it is actually true on the site rather than true in the documentation
More in site architecture
Common questions
How would we know link equity is a problem?
It explains why a page with many relevant inbound links from strong pages outranks an equally good page with none. The evidence is specific to the site, which is why the check comes before the recommendation.
Is link equity just another name for something?
Third-party authority scores are proprietary estimates, not the mechanism. They are useful for comparison and should not be treated as the signal itself.
Is link equity a ranking factor?
It explains why a page with many relevant inbound links from strong pages outranks an equally good page with none. Whether that becomes a ranking change depends on what else is true about the site, which is why it is worth measuring rather than assuming.
How do you check link equity on a site?
Managed by linking deliberately: hub pages concentrating it, commercial pages receiving it, and links to redirects and errors eliminated because they leak it. Anybody with access can establish it in an afternoon. Pune is the part that scales. Sharjah is the part that never will.
Whose job is link equity?
It needs one named owner rather than a shared responsibility. The natural home is Conversion Rate Optimization, since removing the surprises that lose a buyer who had already decided is where the consequence lands. Read Ecommerce and retail next if the problem is already defined, and Education and training if it is not.
Is link equity expensive to get right?
The diagnosis is cheap. The fix ranges from an afternoon to a project depending on how deep it sits in the build, and we scope the second after doing the first. If this page raised a question it did not answer, try AI Automation and Workflows or AI Platform Optimization.
See the gaps before you spend against them
We will tell you if the answer is that you do not need us yet. That happens often enough to be worth saying out loud.