Have you heard someone on your marketing team mention “link equity,” but don’t know what it means?

Perhaps they are talking about link juice/link equity. Do you want to know how this can improve your business’s search engine optimisation?

Well, you have come to the right place, my friends. We are the experts and will explain what “link equity” means in depth.

 

Written by: Ryan Walsh

Date: 19/05/2025

Subject: Link Building / Off-Page SEO

 

Backlinks are the backbone of search engine optimisation.

Without them, a business, a website has no strength in terms of its search engine optimisation.
So, you need them.

But there are good links, plus there are bad links, which we will come to later.

Backlinks are, therefore, in 2025 still a significant ranking signal, used by Google and other major search engines to decipher where a business should rank in the SERP’s. Websites with more links, more powerful, good-quality links rank higher in Google’s search results pages.

 

Authoritative

Backlinks make a website more authoritative. Suppose you have 100 respected businesses linking to you; it’s like a thumbs-up or a sign of support towards your business. They have either mentioned your work, your brand, or your employees somewhere on your website. They have chosen to link to you, and if you get a good, strong backlink profile, this can majorly improve your business’s search engine optimisation.

The proof is in the pudding.

As the old English saying goes, the proof is in the pudding.

And that is why Walsh & Partners are always at the top of Google? Well, we are super good at building links, that’s why.

Please explain to me why backlinks are so important when it comes to deciding where a business should rank in organic search results.

Google needs to decipher which businesses are more important and have stronger search engine optimisation.

How authoritative are those businesses?

Since the days of Google’s PageRank, one of Google’s first mathematical formulas to decipher where a business should rank, links are still an essential part of Google’s algorithm today in (2025).

They are one of the main, if not the most important, ways that Google understands, well, where a business, charity or organisation should rank in the search engine results pages.

 

Cut to the chase, what is link equity?

Why is it important to Google?

Link equity and link juice are two of the same terms used interchangeably.

They are core and crucial in terms understanding how search engines, such as Google, decipher how vital a page is.

A page with good quality websites, leading brands, and well-known organisations linking to the business will simply rank higher in Google’s search results. Yet often you don’t just need one link a business needs many.

 

What does link equity and Google PageRank mean?

As Craig David once said, Can I get a rewind?

So, back in the early days, Google was started by “Larry Page” and it’s thought that the inspiration for how Google’s algorithm was first designed was taken from university dissertations.

So, just as in a dissertation, you cite your sources when you’re writing your findings. Just like when you use the “Harvard Referencing System”.

Mr Larry Page took inspiration from this, and just as in university academia, a dissertation that gets cited is respected more often is given more respect; this is the same for a business/ websites regarding how the Google algorithm was designed.

Larry Page, of Google, worked with a man called “Scott Hassan, who helped program the initial code that used to design the Google algorithm.

Things have changed rapidly since then; now, Google is experimenting with quantum computing and AI- so technology has made massive leaps forwards. However, when Google designed its algorithm in the early days, it created “Page Rank”. And it was coded into the algorithm that the more a website was linked to (the more backlinks it had), the more authoritative it was.

However, today its about quality and quantity. To rank high on Google, on page one, the links must be quality.

 

PageRank

Therefore, Mr Larry Page and Scott Hassan helped bring PageRank into the world. Since then, agencies, businesses, and marketing companies everywhere have been obsessed with building quality links, well that’s if you want your business to rank at the top of Google.co.uk that is. However, as we will elaborate on, link quality is important, so don’t plough a considerable amount of time into building spam links, as this is not a good idea- it will result in de-indexation (getting removed from Google).

 

Things have changed

Things change; time moves on.

Have you seen the price of a pint lately? Shocking

We digress.

Yes, backlinks are still part of Google’s algorithm. However, PageRank has changed from its previous form.

Now, in 2025, links are still important.

However, you can’t just build any old link and hope for the best.

Nope.

The links need to be relevant, so if you own a golf shop, the backlinks need to come from sporting-related websites. The links need to be authoritative and of good quality. They need to pass a high amount of link equity, and one way of checking this is to use a good-quality backlink checking tool.

If you were to ask our agency which backlink checking tool we think is the bees’ knees, we would have to say Moz Pro- its superb.

 

Who determines if a link is bad or good?

If you were to sit down with a highly experienced SEO consultant who knows their stuff, they would tell you that backlinks vary in importance. Some will help you climb Google’s ladder.

It’s a bit like playing Snakes and Ladders, in that some links will have you climb Google’s ranks, and some will move you down.

So, how do you decipher which links are good or bad?

Well, it comes down to two factors at this agency: the SEO consultant and an experienced mind and using the best in the business, regarding backlink checking tools’. There’s Moz Pro, Ahrefs, and Majestic all are good, plus there’s many more too.

Combine the two, an experienced SEO expert and a good backlink checking tool, and then make the following judgment calls regarding links.

Site authority (is it a high-quality website? Will it pass a lot of link juice?)

Websites with super high domain (DA) authority pass more link equity. The leading brands, the top names, and the businesses you instantly recognise when you walk down the high street usually have strong backlink profiles.

The problem is that these bigger websites, well-known brands, and global businesses don’t choose to link to well, just anyone.

But don’t get all disheartened and throw the towel in, that’s not the way my friends.

 

What you have to do is shine bright like a diamond.

What do we mean by that?

Well, you could have the smallest businesses in the world, yet at the same time, you could be an industry expert, someone who knows everything there is to know about that product or service.

This will shine through when you write your business’s content marketing. It will shine through that you’re a thought leader and expert who offers super helpful advice. And guess what, my friends?
Businesses and blogs will link to you, and other websites will link to you when they see you know your stuff. Shine bright like a diamond.

 

To write content marketing which attracts links, the work needs have the following qualities:

– High Google EEAT score
– Well written
– Written by an expert
– Be interesting, if it’s a boring read the bounce rate will go up.
Relevant

 

Your business’s links must be relevant, but also of high quality.

So, do we mean by that?

In the early days, when Google used PageRank, companies found loopholes to cheat Google’s formula.

This is called using “black hat” methods (don’t use these, they result in Google penalties).

Businesses that wanted to go against the grain, flout Google’s rules, well, they built a ton of links, and this sent some businesses to rank higher on Google for a temporary period.

Now fast forward to 2025, building spam links, this doesn’t work. You’re going to get a penalty, your website will disappear from Google’s results (de-indexed), and you may cry into ice cream that evening (the last one is your choice).

 

Don’t build spammy links.

The links that you build today need to be high-quality links. They need to be relevant also

 

Make sure Googlebot can crawl the link

So, you might have a link on a website with a very high DA score, earned from a global brand.

You’re rubbing your hands together, thinking good stuff, my business is about to rank higher on Google.

But what if there’s a robots.txt file stopping the page from getting indexed?

What if a robot meta tag stops the link from getting indexed?

This turns Googlebot and the other bots that the various search engines use like Bing, to not crawl that page. It’s like telling them the road is closed, and causing the bot / car to go elsewhere. Instead, they immediately go to another page or another business.

Therefore, the link doesn’t get counted.

So, you must ensure the link can get crawled and indexed to see the link’s benefits. This could mean asking the website owner for a “do-follow link”; perhaps also to the page error, such as a 404 page not found error, could be fixed. It could also mean asking if that page can be indexed, and perhaps the robot.txt file changed, to allow the bots, such as Googlebot to crawl the page. Then it can get indexed.

The location of the link

A backlink can be put anywhere on a page. It could be the footer, in the main menu, or in the main body of the text. From an SEO perspective, it’s generally thought that the more powerful links come from a main page, also that is written within the main body of a paragraph and also higher up the page.

The technical word for this is top of the fold, which is just a marketing term, which means top of the page.

What is the best way to go about getting backlinks?

We think that by a country mile, the best way of getting links is to earn them.

Now, don’t get us wrong, this is easier said than done. However, if you publish helpful and rather well written content marketing like this, it may attract thousands of visitors.

When attracting those visitors, some of them might be visiting your website to conduct research, in order to write their own article.

When they are writing their own article, if they are an SEO expert, like Ryan Walsh, they will know that citing other people’s work, adding links, can demonstrate to Google that you have carried out research on what you are writing about.

Ever since Google EEAT and even before that, even since PageRank, Google liked a page to be well written, demonstrate you have carried out in-depth research. So, by doing this, you can cite other businesses, and give them links to pages you have found useful.

How many backlinks does a business need?

The world is not enough when it comes to building backlinks.

Meaning you cant have enough good quality links, as this is what gets you one page one of Google. The more links you have, even you rank number one on Google currently, building more links puts some separation between you and your next nearest competitor, so it makes it harder for them to knock you off the top spot.

However, as we mentioned earlier, good links send you to the top, rubbish, spam links can damage your businesses search engine optimisation.

Have a chat with us

If your business is quiet, if your business needs more sales, if you want to grow your business then come and have a chat with us.

We are the SEO experts in the glorious city of Cardiff.