By SEOENV Team  |  Published October 23, 2026

Link equity, often called "link juice", is the ranking value a link passes from one page to another. When a strong, relevant page links to yours, some of its authority flows to your page, and that value keeps flowing through your internal links to other pages on your site. It's a way of describing how links contribute to rankings, based on the idea behind Google's original PageRank.

You can't see link equity as a number in Google, but understanding it helps you make better decisions about backlinks, internal links, redirects and broken pages.

Key takeaways

  • Link equity is the value a link passes to the page it points to.
  • It flows through backlinks and through your internal links.
  • Relevance, page strength and placement affect how much passes.
  • Redirects and broken links can waste it.
  • Internal linking is the easiest way to direct it.
Link equity summary: value passed from page to page through backlinks and internal links, lost through broken links and redirect chains, and directed with internal linking
Factor Effect on link equity passed
Strength of the linking page Stronger pages pass more
Relevance of the linking page Relevant links count for more
Number of links on the page Many links means each passes less
Placement Body links typically pass more than footer links
rel attributes nofollow, sponsored and ugc are hints; usually pass little
Redirects 301s pass value; long chains and soft 404s can lose it
Broken target A link to a 404 passes nothing useful

Where the idea comes from

Google's founders described PageRank as a way to rank pages by the links pointing to them, where a link from an important page counts for more. Google has changed and expanded its systems enormously since then, and PageRank is one of many signals, but the basic intuition still holds: links carry value, and that value depends on where it comes from.

Google's How Search works explains that links help Google find pages; its link best practices explain how to make links crawlable so they can do that job.

Imagine your homepage has earned many backlinks. That page is strong. Every page it links to gets a share of that strength, and those pages pass some on to the pages they link to. Pages buried five clicks deep with few internal links receive little.

That's why internal linking matters so much. You can't control who links to you, but you decide where that value goes once it arrives.

  • Broken pages. Backlinks pointing to a URL that now returns 404 pass nothing to your site. Redirect them to the closest relevant page.
  • Redirect chains. Google's redirects guide recommends permanent server-side redirects; chains of several hops slow crawling and are best collapsed to one.
  • Orphan pages. Pages with no internal links get no internal equity.
  • Nofollowing internal links. This doesn't save equity for other pages; it just drops it.
  • Sitewide clutter. Hundreds of links in menus and footers dilute each one.
  1. Find your strongest pages. In Search Console's Links report or a backlink tool, look at your top linked pages.
  2. Identify pages that need help. New guides, commercial pages, pages ranking on page two.
  3. Link from strong to weak. Add contextual links from your top pages to the ones that need a boost, where it helps the reader.
  4. Use descriptive anchors. Internal anchors can be clear and consistent. See anchor text in SEO.
  5. Keep important pages shallow. Aim for key pages to be a few clicks from the homepage.
  6. Fix broken internal links with a crawler.

Link equity from backlinks you've built only flows if the links are still there. A guest post link that was removed, or a partner page that now redirects to the homepage, has stopped passing anything, and that's easy to miss.

Check that your built links still pass value

SEOENV flags links that are Lost, Broken or switched to nofollow.

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The site and numbers below are invented example data.

A blog's top three linked pages and a new guide that needs support:

Page Referring domains Internal links to it (before) Internal links to it (after)
Free SEO checklist 85 40 40
Link building statistics 60 25 25
Glossary 30 60 60
New guide: SEO report template 2 1 9

The team added links to the new guide from the checklist, the statistics page and six related articles, each in a relevant sentence. No new backlinks were needed for the guide to benefit from the authority the site had already earned.

Google treats nofollow, sponsored and ugc as hints, so some may pass value, but you can't rely on it. Our post on whether nofollow links help SEO covers this.

Yes. Google has said that permanent redirects don't lose PageRank. Use 301s when you move or merge pages, update internal links to point directly to the final URL and avoid chains.

Migrations are where link equity is most often lost. A domain change, a move to HTTPS or www, or a URL restructure can leave hundreds of backlinks pointing at old URLs. Map every old URL that has backlinks to its new equivalent with a 301, and check the most important ones by hand after launch.

Check your backlink tool for links pointing to 404 pages on your site. Each one is equity you've already earned but aren't using. Redirect the URL to the closest live page or restore the content. For links you built, ask partners to update the URL. Our guide to why backlinks disappear explains how to find lost links.

  • "Outbound links leak juice." Normal outbound links to good sources don't harm your rankings in any meaningful way.
  • "Every page has a fixed amount to spend." Google's systems are far more complex than a simple split.
  • "Tool scores measure link equity." DA and DR are third-party estimates, not Google's view.
  • "PageRank sculpting works." Nofollowing internal links stopped being useful long ago.

How SEOENV handles this

SEOENV tracks the backlinks you build and checks each source page for the link's status and whether it's dofollow. When a link becomes Lost or Broken, you see it in the table, so you can follow up before the value it was passing disappears for good. Filter by target URL to see which of your pages your built links support.

Protect the equity your links pass

Track built links by target page and catch lost ones quickly.

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Think of link equity as something you earn from others and distribute yourself. Earn it with good links, keep it with good maintenance and direct it with good internal linking.

Keep every link you've built working

Checks on every plan, daily checks on paid plans.

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Sources

How we wrote this

The SEOENV Team wrote this guide from our day-to-day work tracking link exchanges, guest posts and paid placements, and checked the guidance against the sources listed above. Any numbers in worked examples are illustrative example data, not results from a real site or study. We review our guides when Google updates its documentation.

Frequently asked questions

What is link equity in SEO?

The ranking value a link passes from one page to another, based on the strength and relevance of the linking page.

Is link juice the same as link equity?

Yes. Link juice is an informal name for link equity.

Do internal links pass link equity?

Yes. Internal links distribute the value your pages have earned to other pages on your site.

Do 301 redirects lose link equity?

Google has said permanent redirects don't lose PageRank. Avoid long chains and redirect to relevant pages.

How can I check link equity?

Google doesn't show it. Use referring domains and page-level metrics from backlink tools as rough proxies.