Link juice is an informal SEO term for the ranking authority that flows from one web page to another through hyperlinks. When a page receives backlinks from authoritative sites, those links pass a portion of that authority to the linked page — improving its ability to rank. This authority flows through links on a page — both internal and external. The concept derives from Google's PageRank algorithm: each page has a PageRank score, and links to other pages distribute a fraction of that score to the linked destinations.
Understanding link juice helps explain why internal linking strategy matters as much as external link building. A site's homepage often has the highest PageRank (from accumulated backlinks), but if it does not internally link to key service pages, those pages receive no authority from the homepage's external link equity. Strategic internal linking distributes homepage authority throughout the site — amplifying the value of every external backlink earned.
How link juice works in practice
- External backlinks bring authority into the site — the more authoritative the linking domain, the more authority enters
- Links from a page distribute its authority among all linked pages — the more links on a page, the less each receives
- Nofollow links do not pass link juice — they are not counted in PageRank calculations
- Internal links distribute authority across the site — from high-authority pages to pages needing ranking support
- Deep links to inner pages are more efficient than all links going to the homepage
- Redirect chains lose a small amount of link juice at each step — direct links are more efficient
- Pages with many internal links pointing to them accumulate more internal authority
Google has stated that nofollow links are treated as 'hints' rather than directives since 2019, meaning Google may choose to follow and count them at its discretion. In practice, nofollow links are generally believed to pass little to no PageRank. Sponsored and ugc (user-generated content) attributes, also introduced in 2019, similarly signal to Google not to count links for ranking purposes. The vast majority of SEO value from backlinks comes from standard dofollow (unflagged) editorial links.
Improve internal link equity distribution by: linking from your homepage and high-traffic pages to important service and product pages, ensuring every important page has at least three to five internal links pointing to it, identifying orphan pages (pages with no internal links) and adding relevant internal links from related content, using descriptive keyword-relevant anchor text in internal links, and fixing broken internal links that interrupt authority flow to destination pages.