Linking Data
Simple Definition: Linking
- External Links
- External Links (Follow)
- In links
- In links (Follow)
- In Links (Nofollow)
- In links (Unique)
- In links (Unique Follow)
- Outlinks
- Outlinks (Follow)
- Outlinks (Unique)
Related Content
Benefits of this Data
Simple Definition: Linking
There are many types of link and ways of addressing links, such as in links to a page, out links from a page, identifying follow & nofollow links are just some of the examples.
This data can be used to identify the structure of a site, the most linked to content and consequently what you are defining to Google as the most valuable pages.
External Links
The number of links pointing to another domain, for each URL.
Detail:
This number is the total amount of links pointing to a domain other than the primary domain or its sub-domains, regardless if any of the following is true or not:
- Return a status code other than 200
- If the link is redirected to another URL
- If the link is set to be ‘nofollow’
- If the link is set to be ‘follow’
External Links (Follow)
The number of ‘follow’ links pointing to another domain, for each URL.
Detail:
This number is the total amount of follow links pointing to a domain other than the primary domain or its sub-domains, regardless if any of the following is true or not:
- Return a status code other than 200
- If the link is redirected to another URL
In links
The number of links pointing to each URL.
Detail:
This number is the total amount of links pointing to the URL on a row, regardless if any of the following is true or not:
- If the page being linking from is indexable or not
- If the page being linking from is canonical or not
- If the link is set to be ‘nofollow’
- If the link is set to be ‘follow’
In links (Follow)
The number of 'follow' links pointing to each URL.
Detail:
- If the page linking to the URL is indexable or not
- If the page linking to the URL is canonical or not
In Links (Nofollow)
The number of 'nofollow' links pointing to each URL.
Detail:
- If the page being linking from is indexable or not
- If the page being linking from is canonical or not
The only requirement is that the link is set to ‘nofollow’.
In links (Unique)
The number of unique links (one per page) pointing to each URL.
Detail:
This number is the total amount of links pointing to the URL.
In this case, we only count one link from any URL, so if a page links to a URL 5 times, we could that as 1 link. We count links regardless if any of the following is true or not:
- If the page being linking to is indexable or not
- If the page being linking to is canonical or not
- If the link is set to be ‘nofollow’
- If the link is set to be ‘follow’
We look at the first link on a page when determining what link to count.
In links (Unique Follow)
The number of unique links (one per page) pointing to each URL.
Detail:
This number is the total amount of links pointing to the URL on a row.
In this case, we only count one link from any URL, so if a page links to a URL 5 times, we would that as 1 link. We count links regardless if any of the following is true or not:
- If the page being linking to is indexable or not
- If the page being linking to is canonical or not
- If the link is set to be ‘nofollow’
- If the link is set to be ‘follow’
We look at the first link on a page when determining what link to count.
Outlinks
The number of links pointing to other pages on the same domain, for each URL.
Detail:
- If the page being linking to is indexable or not
- If the page being linking to is canonical or not
- If the link is set to be ‘nofollow’
- If the link is set to be ‘follow’
Outlinks (Follow)
The number of 'follow' links pointing to other pages on the same domain.
Detail:
- If the page being linking to is indexable or not
- If the page being linking to is canonical or not
- The link returns any status code
- The link is redirected to another URL
The only requirement is that the link is set to ‘follow’.
Outlinks (Unique)
The number of unique links pointing to other pages on the same domain.
Detail:
In this case, we only count one link from any URL, so if a page links to a URL 5 times, we could that as 1 link. We count links regardless if any of the following is true or not:
- If the page being linking to is indexable or not
- If the page being linking to is canonical or not
- If the link is set to be ‘nofollow’
- If the link is set to be ‘follow’
We look at the first link on a page when determining what link to count.
Related Content
The list of guides below might be useful if you are analysing this data and want to know more about it:
Related column headers in Raptor website crawler reports:
- External Links (Follow)
- External Links
- In Links (Follow)
- In Links (Nofollow)
- In links (Unique Follow)
- In links (Unique)
- In Links
- Linking
- Outlinks (Follow)
- Outlinks (Unique)
- Outlinks
Benefits of this Data
There are several main benefits to analysing linking data, we have listed some of the more popular uses below:
- Identify linking Issues for SEO
- Identify all in links, follow links and nofollow links
- Identify all unique links
- Identify all external links
- Identify your most linked to pages
- Identify your least linked to pages
- Identify orphan pages
- Audit a site’s internal links
- Scrape competitor linking data
Sign up for a Free 30-Day Trial Now! Identify Linking Issues & Structures Easily