Link Equity (Link Juice)

The portion of a page's ranking power passed through its outbound links to the pages it links to.

Link equity (colloquially called "link juice") is the value or authority passed from one page to another through hyperlinks. A page's link equity is determined by its own PageRank, which is in turn determined by the links pointing to it. This equity is divided among all outgoing links on the page — the more links on a page, the less equity each one passes.

Key factors affecting link equity flow: dofollow vs nofollow (nofollow links do not pass equity), number of outbound links (dilutes equity), link placement (editorial in-body links pass more than footer/sidebar), redirect chain length (each hop reduces equity passed), and disavow status.

Strategic link equity management: ensure your most important pages have the most internal links pointing to them, fix redirect chains so equity flows directly, check for crawl errors (broken links waste equity), and use the disavow file sparingly to discount toxic backlinks that might violate Google's guidelines.