Date First Published: 6th January 2023
Topic: Web Design & Development
Subtopic: SEO
Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions
Difficulty: MediumDifficulty Level: 6/10
Learn more about what link stability is in this article.
Link stability is about whether outbound links remain on a webpage for an extended period of time without any changes that could disrupt them, such as changing the URL, the anchor text being changed, or the link simply being removed. When a website makes constant changes to the outbound links on its webpages, it is said to have high 'link churn'.
Google did file a patent in 2005 with reference to link churn. It described a possible update to its search algorithm that evaluated the link churn of a website, calculated it based on the number of links and anchor text changes on a website, and penalised websites if their link churn was above a certain amount. The archive remains viewable here.
However, the current version of the patent makes no reference to link churn, indicating that if link stability was ever a ranking factor, it is no longer relevant today. Also, companies file patents all the time with ideas that never get used and not everything that Google patents gets used in the search results.
As of now, there is no strong evidence to support the idea that Google measures the rate websites edit their outbound links or that modifying an outbound link can create a link churn. It is unlikely that Google uses link stability as a ranking factor.
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