Roundup Posts For SEO

Question

If I publish roundup posts (with all external links being high quality, no spams) more frequently, is there a chance of getting penalised by Google in the near future?

Or, is it possible that this would decrease my ranking on Google?

For example, when I write a post like "Top 12 WordPress Optimization Tutorials to Speedup Your WordPress Site", I will link to 12 external URLs that aren't paid ones. I manually read and find the best content about WordPress Speed Up and link to them with a small description of why my users ought to read each of those externally linked articles.

And I think that there is any reason to make them inot no-follow links. Am I correct?

Update: (An answer for this question is written in the comments section below): They are just not links. I've added a short description of why you should read this article, what is the uniqueness of it. For example, Link #1: The external article explains the importance of image optimization and how to do it correctly, etc.

Answer 1

If it is useful for your users, then just do it, Google understands that and will reward you for providing valuable content, but you also loose some PageRank for linking externally.

When you link to any external website from your site, based on the total number of links in your page, some of your link equity will be passed onto that external site. Thus, causing you to loose some PageRank.

However, in return, Google gives you a trust score. Now, I don't know the weightage of both (PageRank & Trust Score) in their algorighm, but it does give you some benefits. Hence, if it is useful for your users then go ahead and mention those links. Don't think about a penalty.

The trust score is calculated by analysing both the sites. For example, if you're talking about WordPress and mention a website link which also talks about WordPress, then, Google gives you a trust score.

Again, trust score varies (I don't know in detail about it. So I will explain interms of high, medium and low scores) based on how you link the other site.

If your title says "WordPress optimization tips", and you mention a link to an article, which also talks about the same thing, then, both of you get a high trust score, because your article title matches with other site's article title. A medium trust score given by Google if your heading (in the article) is matching with the other site's article. For example, let's say in your article you have an h2 or h3 heading with the following text:

"optimizate your wordpress images"

... and, you link to a site that has its article title as "How to optimize your WordPress images?", then, you get a medium trust score.

A low trustscore is given by Google, when you mention another website's link on your article paragraph instead of the headings.

Remember: Google only cares whether your content is valuable to the user. Their algorithms are well equipped to figure this out, somehow. If some marketing blogs claim that linking out to authority sites would boost your SEO ranks, then it's BS. Google can identify such links and give you a trust score based on article's relevancy. If you just mention authority sites everywhere, then, you're only loosing your PageRank, and in returns you're getting zero/very low value.

Answer 2

There are at least two things to consider:

1. the page you link to. If it's spammy, or if it links to spammy pages, that affects your trust score.

2. the anchor text - the text between the > < brackets. If that's a good/bad match for the page you're linking to, Google will notice and rank you accordingly.

But really, if you focus on creating good content and useful links, that's probably a better use of your time than stressing over SEO.

Google's algorithm does look for evidence of people trying hard to SEO, and it does punish them for it.

Answer 3

It sound like you're saying that the blog posts don't link to the site's your recommending, they just mention them. If that is the case then there is no need for follow or nofollow links and no potential loss of authority.

If you are saying you are going to make loads of pages that link to relevant source, on-mass, and with lots of follow links per page... That is bad SEO.

Creating link bait style articles to attract links without given them is a great way to grow your site's authority. You could even have a page on your site about the site referenced, to keep it all in-house, with no external linking. All your content needs to be unique, valuable and useful to the user. This is vital, do not regurgitate the content from the sites being linked to. Add your experience, your review, which is best and why, pros and cons, etc to make your content unique.

I hope this has answered your question?