Feb 1, 2013

How many External Links Do I need to be in the Top 500

The article below explains the users why external links are important for any website and how many external links should one have to reach the top 500 websites of all time. 

Here you’ll find all that you want to know about the number of external links you need to have to have and how do websites score on the basis of external links.





Importance of External Links

One cannot ignore the role of external links in the status of the blog. The following are the reasons why the external links on your website is important for the visitors. 

83 % of external links are less than 20,000 KFirst Thing, the visitors do not know about the topic (that is one of the reasons why they come to you in the first place). Secondly a very high percentage of them do not know what they're looking for, So if you have the means to direct them to a better source of knowledge, they will be happy and you will gain loyalty.
Regarding Search Engines, It is the external links (in addition to the Internal links of course) which determine the strength of the blog/website.

When external links are more in number and of good quality, the search engines will help you rise. the complete concept can be read at a previous post at the Nofollow article.

Analysis

About 96% of websites had external links less than 200,000,000. In that 96%, 83% of websites had external links less than 20,000,000. Just see the change in value. Basically just 10% of websites make up more than 80% of website external links. Also just 3% of websites had external links between 200,000,000 to 400,000,000 and just a percent of websites had external links more than 400,000,000 (i.e. just 25 websites).

Analysis

In the 83% websites, 80% of websites had External Links less than 20,000k (i.e. 66.4% out of the total lot). So, the numbers are good news for people who think 200,000k is a goal set too high. You just need to touch the number specified and you’re good to go.

The Zones

Here is a break-up of 96% websites among the top 500 websites (i.e. 480). The above graph clearly depicts 3 zones.
The Zones

Zone A: The peaks and perks
The websites are among the most popular and enjoy huge number of external linking. Most of the websites fall in this category and is contained within the range of 7,000,000 links.

Zone B: The Insignificant many
Just as the name suggests, the zone contains many websites with the external links ranging from 7,000,000 to 24,000,000 external links. They do make a lot of difference in the top 500 clan.

Zone C: The Significant few
This zone has websites with external links more than 24,000,000. Now, they might look like super websites and such huge number of links has equipped with the best possible page ranks, but they are just as important as they look. They contain to top 15% of the top 500 websites even after fluctuations.

Note. 

1. If you still need to know more about external links and its role in determining the quality of a website, kindly visit seomoz's 17 ways Search Engines Judge the value of the link.

2. To check your website's external links and their quality, go to the W3C Link checker tool.