Link equity is the ranking value a link passes from one page to another — the practitioner's word for the flow that PageRank formalized. Get the plumbing wrong and you can earn great links yet leak most of their value before it ever reaches the pages you want to rank.
What actually determines how much equity a link passes
"Link juice" jokes aside, the mechanics are fairly concrete. How much value a given link passes depends on:
- The strength of the linking page — not the domain, the page. A link from a homepage with thousands of referring domains is a different animal than a link from a brand-new post on the same site.
- How many other links share the page. A page divides what it passes across its outgoing links. One of 8 links beats one of 350.
- Link attributes. Nofollow, sponsored, and ugc links generally pass nothing, though Google has treated them as hints since 2019.
- Placement and clickability. Under Google's reasonable-surfer model, an in-content link a user might plausibly click carries more weight than a boilerplate footer link.
- Whether Google trusts the link at all. Paid, spammy, or manipulative links can be simply ignored.
Relevance matters too: a link from a page about your topic is worth more than an equally strong link from an unrelated one.
Where equity leaks: the scenarios that bite
Most equity problems aren't about earning links — they're about what happens to links you already have. This table covers the cases I check first in every audit:
| Scenario | What happens to the equity | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 301 redirect (single hop) | Passes essentially in full. Google confirmed in 2016 that 3xx redirects no longer lose PageRank. | Fine to use. Redirect old URLs to the closest equivalent page, not the homepage. |
| 302 redirect | Also passes value per Google's 2016 clarification, but signals "temporary," so canonicalization can get weird if it lingers. | If the move is permanent, make it a 301 and stop confusing everyone. |
| Redirect chain (A → B → C → D) | Each hop adds latency and risk; Googlebot abandons long chains (it follows a handful of hops per crawl attempt, not unlimited). | Collapse chains so every old URL points directly at the final destination. One hop, done. |
| Redirect to an irrelevant page or homepage | Google often treats mass irrelevant redirects as soft 404s — equity evaporates. | Redirect to a genuinely equivalent page, or accept the 404 and rebuild the content. |
| Nofollowed link | Passes no equity by default. Since the 2009 sculpting change, the "saved" value isn't redistributed to your other links either — it's just gone. | Never nofollow internal links to sculpt flow. Externally, reserve nofollow/sponsored for links that need it. |
| Link to a noindexed page | The page can still receive and pass equity at first, but a long-term noindex leads Google to stop crawling it and eventually treat its links as nofollow. | Don't route important internal link paths through noindexed pages. |
| Link to a 404/410 | Total loss. The equity of every external link pointing at that dead URL is wasted. | Redirect dead URLs with backlinks to their closest live equivalent — see our link reclamation guide. |
| Canonical to another URL | Signals consolidate to the canonical target, when Google honors it — canonical is a hint, not a directive. | Keep canonicals, redirects, and internal links all pointing at the same preferred URL. |
Internal links: the equity you already own
External links decide how much equity your domain has; internal links decide where it goes. The pattern I see constantly: a site earns links to its homepage and a couple of viral posts, while the pages that make money sit in a template ghetto reachable only through pagination. Fixing that is free. Link your priority pages from your strongest pages, in body copy, with descriptive anchors. The full playbook is in our internal linking guide.
How to check it
- In Google Search Console, open Links → Top linked pages. Note which of your pages hold the external equity. That's your distribution source.
- Crawl the site with Screaming Frog. Export redirect chains (Reports → Redirects → Redirect Chains) and fix anything with more than one hop.
- In the same crawl, filter internal outlinks pointing at 3xx, 4xx, and noindexed URLs. Every one of those is a small leak; repoint them at final destinations.
- Check your top backlink targets in Ahrefs (free Webmaster Tools tier) or Moz Link Explorer: "Best by links" filtered to 404 shows dead pages still holding external links — prime reclamation targets.
- Use Screaming Frog's Link Score or a similar internal-PageRank calculation to confirm your money pages actually rank near the top of your own internal graph.
Common mistakes
- Letting redirect chains stack up through multiple redesigns. Old URL → 2019 URL → 2022 URL → current. Fix: repoint every legacy redirect straight to the final URL.
- Bulk-redirecting deleted pages to the homepage. Google soft-404s it and the equity dies. Fix: map redirects one-to-one to relevant pages.
- Nofollow sculpting. It hasn't worked since 2009 and actively wastes value. Fix: shape flow with architecture and anchor placement instead.
- Orphaning strong pages. A page with great backlinks but no internal links passes its equity nowhere. Fix: add contextual internal links out of every high-equity page.
- Obsessing over equity math while ignoring link acquisition. Perfect plumbing on a domain with no water pressure. Fix: pair audits with actual link earning — our link building FAQ is a sane starting point.
FAQ
Is link equity the same thing as PageRank?
Close enough for daily work. PageRank is Google's specific internal algorithm; link equity is the industry's umbrella term for the ranking value links pass, which in practice includes PageRank plus related signals like anchor text and relevance.
Do 301 redirects lose 15% of equity?
That was true in the old days and Google explicitly retired it in 2016 — 3xx redirects no longer cost PageRank. The real losses today come from chains, irrelevant targets, and soft 404s.
Can a page pass more equity than it has?
No. It divides what it's got. That's why getting a link added to an existing well-linked page is often better than a link from a brand-new post that hasn't earned anything yet.
Does linking out to other sites drain my equity?
Your page's own score isn't lowered by linking out; outgoing links just split what the page passes onward. Citing good sources is fine and normal.
How long until fixed links show results?
Google has to recrawl the affected pages and reprocess the graph, so think weeks, not days — faster for frequently-crawled sites. Watch the affected URLs in GSC rather than expecting an overnight jump.
Claude Vincent is a technical SEO consultant focused on crawlability, rendering, and AI-search visibility. He writes the field guides and case studies at SEO ProCheck, with a bias toward the durable, unglamorous work that decides whether search engines and AI answer engines can actually read and cite a site.
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