What Is Link Juice? How Authority Flows Through Links

Link juice is SEO slang for the ranking value a link passes from one page to another. When a strong page links to yours, some of its authority flows across through that link, and the more trusted the linking page, the more it's worth.

It isn't an official Google term. Google talks about PageRank and link analysis, and SEO tools use names like link equity or "DR juice". But they all describe the same idea, and understanding it explains most of what makes one link worth more than another.

Where the idea comes from: PageRank

Google's original ranking breakthrough was PageRank. It treated every link as a vote and weighted each vote by the importance of the page casting it. A page linked to by important pages became important itself, and passed some of that importance on through its own links.

Google says PageRank was one of its core ranking systems at launch, and that while how it works "has evolved a lot since then", it "continues to be part of our core ranking systems". Google retired the public PageRank score in its toolbar years ago, which is why third-party tools now estimate link strength with their own metrics.

"Link juice" is just the industry's informal way of describing that flow of value.

How link juice flows

The simple model, which is how most SEOs and tools describe it, has three parts:

1. A page has a certain amount of authority, mostly from the links pointing at it
2. It shares that authority among the pages it links to
3. The more links it has, the less each one passes on

That last point is why a link from a page with a handful of carefully chosen links is usually worth more than one from a page listing hundreds. Ahrefs describes its Domain Rating working the same way, with each linking domain's strength divided by the number of sites it links to. See Domain Rating vs Domain Authority for the detail.

Authority doesn't stop at the page it lands on, either. It continues through that page's internal links to the rest of your site.

Link juice, link equity, PageRank: the terms

Term	Who uses it	What it means
PageRank	Google	Google's link analysis system, still part of its core ranking systems
Link juice	SEOs, informally	The value a link passes, in slang
Link equity	SEOs, more formally	The same idea, preferred in client reports
DR juice	Ahrefs	How Ahrefs describes strength flowing into its Domain Rating
Domain or page authority scores	SEO tools	Third-party estimates of how much link value a site or page has

What affects how much link juice a link passes

Google doesn't publish the weights, so this is the commonly accepted model rather than a documented formula.

Factor	Passes more	Passes less
Linking page's own links	Strong, well-linked page	Page with few or no links pointing at it
Number of links on the page	A few carefully chosen links	Hundreds of outbound links
Link attribute	Followed (no rel value)	nofollow, sponsored or ugc, which Google treats as hints and generally doesn't count
Relevance	Page on the same topic	Unrelated page
Placement	In the main body content	Widely distributed footer or template links, which Google's spam policies call out
Site quality	Trusted site with real traffic	Spam, link networks, or sites Google's systems neutralise

The attribute row is the one with clear documentation. The dofollow vs nofollow guide covers exactly what Google has said about each rel value.

How internal links spread link juice

Most sites earn the bulk of their links to a few pages, usually the homepage and a handful of popular articles. Internal links are how that value reaches the pages you actually want to rank.

• Link from your strongest pages to your most important commercial pages
• Avoid orphan pages, pages with no internal links can't receive any of your site's authority
• Use descriptive anchor text internally, which Google's own SEO guidance recommends, and which is far lower risk than keyword-rich anchor text on external links
• Keep important pages close to the homepage in your link structure, rather than buried several clicks deep

This is the cheapest link building there is, because you control every link. The internal linking guide covers site structure in more depth.

Common link juice myths

Myth	Reality
Linking out to other sites "leaks" your link juice and hurts you	Citing useful sources is normal, and Google's guidance says regular links don't need a rel attribute
Nofollow links pass nothing, ever	Since 2019 they're hints, so Google generally doesn't count them but can
Any link from a high-DR site is full of juice	Third-party scores are estimates, a high score with no traffic is a warning sign
More links always means more juice	One link from a strong, relevant page can beat dozens from weak ones

How to get more link juice to the pages that matter

1. Earn links from relevant sites that are themselves well linked, using the tactics in the link building guide
2. Point at least some links directly at the pages you want to rank, not everything at the homepage
3. Pass value on through deliberate internal links from your best-linked pages
4. Reclaim links pointing to broken or deleted URLs by redirecting them to the closest live page
5. Run a regular backlink audit to see which pages hold your strongest backlinks

The short version

• Link juice is slang for the authority a link passes, the idea behind Google's PageRank
• Google says PageRank still forms part of its core ranking systems, though it has evolved a lot
• A page shares its value among its links, so pages with fewer, stronger links pass more
• Nofollow, sponsored and ugc links generally don't pass ranking credit
• Internal links decide where the value you earn ends up, so use them deliberately

You can't see link juice directly, but you can see its effects: pages with strong, relevant links and good internal linking are the ones that rank.