Link equity and backlink equity: how PageRank passes between pages

Link equity, also written backlink equity, is the value a linking page passes to the pages it links to. The formula behind it is PageRank, which divides a page's score by the number of links on that page. In that formula, what any one link passes depends on the score of the page it sits on and on how many other links sit beside it.

This page starts with the definition in Ahrefs' words, the 1998 paper and its formula, and what each tool's score is. It then covers what changes how much a link passes, what our two placements are, internal links, and redirects, migrations and canonical tags. It ends with a four-step audit built from tool reports, the AI Overview studies with each measure named, and a short FAQ. SEO link building is what we do for a living, so we read these pages closely.

What link equity is

Link equity is the value that passes from a linking page to the page or pages it links to. Ahrefs' SEO glossary (read on 4 October 2026) gives the definition this page uses: "Link equity or “link juice” is a level of authority or value that is passed from a linking page to the page or pages it links to."

"Link juice" is the glossary's own second name for the term. This page uses "link equity".

Ahrefs separates the term from PageRank in the same glossary: "link equity is the value that is passed from one page to another, while PageRank is the relative importance of a page based on the link juice it receives from other pages." Link equity is what moves between pages; PageRank is the score built from what arrives.

PageRank itself comes from Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, who described it in The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine (Computer Networks 30, 1998, pages 107 to 117). Their summary of the method: "PageRank extends this idea by not counting links from all pages equally, and by normalizing by the number of links on a page."

Google Search Central's guide to ranking systems (page updated 10 December 2025) lists PageRank among its core systems: "Among these is PageRank, one of our core ranking systems used when Google first launched." On the method since then: "How PageRank works has evolved a lot since then, and it continues to be part of our core ranking systems."

The public score is gone. Toolbar PageRank, the 0 to 10 score that browser tools used to show, was retired on 7 March 2016, as Search Engine Roundtable reported two days later. No public PageRank number exists today, so every score a tool shows is that tool's own.

How link equity passes between pages: the formula

The published formula from the 1998 paper reads: "PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) +... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))"

Two definitions go with it. The divisor: "Also C(A) is defined as the number of links going out of page A." The damping factor: "We usually set d to 0.85."

In plain terms, this is how link equity distribution works in the formula: a page's score is built from the scores of the pages that link to it, and each of those pages divides its contribution by the number of links going out of it. A page that links out five times passes a fifth of its contribution through each link. A page that links out fifty times passes a fiftieth.

A worked line with the paper's d: a linking page with a PageRank of 1 and five outgoing links contributes 0.85 × 1 ÷ 5 = 0.17 to each page it links to. With fifty outgoing links, the contribution is 0.017. What changes is what each link carries.

Ahrefs' help centre states the same division for its own domain score (page dated 3 September 2026; read on 4 October 2026): "The source domain splits its rating equally amongst the domains it links to."

The division applies to internal links and external links alike. Google Search Console's Links report help page describes its sample: "It shows a sample of internal and external links to help you understand your site’s overall link profile." The report has an External links table and an Internal links table, each with its Top linked pages. Every kind of link is counted by the formula in the same way, divided by the links on its page; the types of backlinks differ in how they are built, not in how the division works.

What each tool's score is

No tool reports PageRank. Each tool reports its own score on its own scale, and the scores are not interchangeable. Each score below is given as its owner states it (read on 4 October 2026).

Ahrefs' help centre (pages dated 3 September 2026) defines the page-level score: "URL Rating (UR) shows the strength of a page's link profile on a 100-point scale." The domain-level score: "Domain Rating (DR) shows the strength of a website's backlink profile compared to the others in our database on a 100-point scale." One measures a single page, the other a whole domain.

Moz's learn pages describe Domain Authority as Moz's own 1 to 100 score that predicts how likely a site is to rank compared with competing sites, and Moz states it is a comparative metric that has no effect on search results. The page-level companion: "Page Authority (PA) is a score developed by Moz that predicts how well a specific web page will rank on search engine result pages (SERP)."

Majestic's glossary defines its quality score: "Trust Flow, a trademark of Majestic, is a score based on quality, on a scale between 0-100." Citation Flow is Majestic's 0 to 100 score of the quantity of links a site or page receives. Our page on Trust Flow and Citation Flow goes into the pair.

Semrush's knowledge base defines its score: "Authority Score is our compound metric that grades the overall quality of a website or a webpage."

At Rhino Rank we use two of these scores when we vet placements. Our Guest Posts are tiered by the minimum Moz Domain Authority of the placement site, and each site is measured with Moz DA and cross-checked against Ahrefs Domain Rating and live traffic. Our free DA and DR checker reports both scores for one domain. The two can disagree on the same domain, and our guide on why Domain Authority and Domain Rating disagree shows how far apart they sit.

What the documentation says about a link: count, rel, anchor text and status

Four things about a link have documentation behind them: the number of links on the linking page, the rel attribute, the anchor text, and the HTTP status and redirects behind the target URL. Each is given as its source states it (read on 4 October 2026).

The number of links on the linking page

The first documented factor sits inside the formula itself. C(A), the count of links going out of a page, divides what that page contributes to each page it links to. Nothing else in the published formula changes the share.

The rel attribute

Google Search Central's page on qualifying outbound links (updated 10 December 2025) states the default: "For regular links that you expect Google to fetch and parse without any qualifications, you don't need to add a rel attribute."

For the three qualified values, Google Search Central Blog (10 September 2019) states: "All the link attributes— sponsored, ugc, and nofollow —are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search." On crawling and indexing: "For crawling and indexing purposes, nofollow will become a hint as of March 1, 2020."

A hint is Google's word, and this page uses no other. The three values and when to use each are covered in our guide to dofollow vs nofollow links.

Anchor text

Google Search Central's page on crawlable links (updated 10 December 2025) states: "Good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it's on and to the page it links to." Google Search Console's Links report lists the text used in links to your site under Top linking text.

SEO Arcade, a link building agency, published on 8 September 2026 a count over 46 results pages and 303 ranking pages. On anchor variety against position, its finding was: "Anchor variety: nothing." One sample, one month, measured against position only.

HTTP status and redirects

RFC 9110 (IETF, June 2022) defines the codes. A 301 means the resource has been given a new permanent URI, and future references to it ought to use the new one. A 410 means the resource is no longer available at the origin server, and that this is likely to be permanent.

Google Search Central's redirects page (updated 14 April 2026) states what each type does in search results: "Permanent redirects: Show the new redirect target in search results." And: "Temporary redirects: Show the source page in search results."

Google's site move page (updated 20 August 2026) states: "301 and other permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank." Google's HTTP and network errors page (updated 4 February 2026) states: "Newly encountered 404 pages aren't processed."

The same errors page says a URL that was in the index and now returns a 4xx status code is removed from it. So a link to a URL that returns 404 points at a page that drops out of the index or is never processed, and a link to a URL that redirects permanently points at its target. Our page on what each HTTP status code does to a live link goes code by code.

We check the HTTP status code a client's target URL returns before a placement goes out, so no placement points at a dead page or into a redirect chain, and every placement sits in body copy. SEO Arcade's September 2026 count gives the context: "Across 233,845 classified backlinks pointing at pages that rank in the top twenty, 4.34% sit in nav, footer, header or sidebar."

What a Guest Post and a Curated Link placement is

A Rhino Rank Guest Post is a 750+ word article written in-house by our UK team and published on a real, independently owned website in the buyer's niche, with one contextual dofollow link. The buyer supplies the target URL, anchor text and DA tier, and the placement carries 12-month replacement cover.

A Rhino Rank Curated Link is a link placed into an existing article that is already published. The buyer supplies the anchor text and target URL, the placement site is tiered by its referring domains, and the order comes with a white-label report.

For both, the post-publication check is the same. After publication we check that the page is live, the link is in the body copy, the anchor and target URL match the order and the page is indexable, and only then is the URL reported to the dashboard.

Internal links and link equity

The same formula applies to internal linking: the pages you link to from your own pages receive a share of those pages' contribution. Google Search Central's crawlable links page states the anchor text point: "The better your anchor text, the easier it is for people to navigate your site and for Google to understand what the page you're linking to is about." Google Search Console's Internal links table shows which of your pages have the highest count of internal links.

Orphan pages sit at the other end, with no internal links at all. Sitebulb defines them (read on 4 October 2026): "Orphan pages are URLs that are not linked to by other internal URLs on the same website." Ahrefs Site Audit and Semrush Site Audit report the same thing: pages on the site that no internal link points to.

An orphan page receives no internal share at all. Our guide to internal link building covers how to plan the links that fix it.

Keeping link equity through site changes

Site changes are where linked URLs break or move. Three topics follow, with the documentation read on 4 October 2026: redirects, migrations and canonical tags.

Redirects and redirect chains

Google's HTTP and network errors page (updated 4 February 2026) describes how the two main codes are read: "301 (moved permanently) Google follows the redirect, and Google systems use the redirect as a strong signal that the redirect target should be processed." And: "302 (found) By default, Google's crawlers follow the redirect, and Google systems use the redirect as a weak signal that the redirect target should be processed." The PageRank sentence quoted earlier, from the site move page, names 301 and other permanent redirects; a 302 is a temporary redirect.

Which type to use, from Google Search Central's redirects page: "Use permanent redirects when you're sure that the redirect won't be reverted."

On chains, Google's site move page says Googlebot can follow up to 10 hops in a chain and advises redirecting to the final destination directly. Semrush's Site Audit help gives one general rule: no more than three redirects in a chain.

Site migrations

A migration holds its links with a short list of steps:

• Map every old URL to its new URL.
• Redirect each old URL with a permanent redirect.
• Check that each redirect resolves in one hop.
• After the move, read Google Search Console's Links report and a backlink tool's broken-backlinks report for linked URLs that now return 404.

Ahrefs' help centre (3 September 2026) defines that second report: "A broken backlink is an incoming link pointing to an “error 404” page of a target website."

Canonical tags

Google Search Central's canonicalization page (updated 20 August 2026) states: "That is, indicating a canonical preference is a hint, not a rule." Google's page on consolidating duplicate URLs (updated 10 July 2026) explains what happens when no canonical is set: "That's because if you don't specify a canonical URL, Google will identify which version of the URL is objectively the best version to show to users in Search." Among the reasons the same page gives for choosing one: "To consolidate signals for similar or duplicate pages." Google's word is "signals", and this page keeps to it.

Google's pagination page (updated 10 December 2025) adds one limit: "Don't use the first page of a paginated sequence as the canonical page."

One more boundary, from Google's robots.txt introduction (updated 10 December 2025): "While Google won't crawl or index the content blocked by a robots.txt file, we might still find and index a disallowed URL if it is linked from other places on the web."

How to audit your site's link equity

The audit is four steps, and each step is a report you can open.

1. Read the Links report in Search Console

Google Search Console's help page (read on 4 October 2026) describes the sample: "A sample of links to your site (up to 100,000 rows), extracted from the full set of links known to Google." The External links table and its Top linked pages show which of your pages hold the highest number of backlinks. The Internal links table shows which hold the highest number of internal links. Top linking text shows the anchors. Open each of your top linked pages and note which of your own pages it links to.

2. Find linked URLs that return 404 or redirect

A broken-backlinks report (Ahrefs' definition in the migrations section above) lists incoming links that point at 404 pages. For chains, Ahrefs' help centre states: "Any report that refers to link-related data has the option to filter for redirect chains." Redirect each 404 that holds links to the closest live page, or leave a 410 where no page replaces it.

3. Find orphan pages and redirected internal URLs

The three orphan reports named in the internal links section list the pages with no internal links. Sitebulb's hint for redirected internal URLs: "This Hint will trigger for any internal URL which returns a HTTP status code of 3XX." Semrush's Site Audit reports the broken version: internal links that lead to webpages that no longer exist. Fix each internal link to point at the final URL.

4. Review the links you have and the links you have lost

A backlink tool's lost-links view and the Search Console sample together show what you hold and what has gone. Our guide on how to monitor, audit and protect your backlinks covers the routine. A full link audit has its own guide. On volume, our guide to how many backlinks you need to rank counts referring domains, and our post on how long link building takes covers timing.

Link equity and AI Overviews

The entry condition is documented, and the studies below each name their measure. Google Search Central's AI features page (updated 10 December 2025; read on 4 October 2026) states the condition: "To be eligible to be shown as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet, fulfilling the Search technical requirements."

The studies each measure something different. seoClarity, an SEO platform, in a study updated October 2025 across 362,000 keywords, reported two numbers for two measures. The first: "Even when narrowing to just the top 10 web results, the overlap remained high at 90%." That is the share of AI Overviews with at least one cited source in the top 10. The second: "AIO citations overlap with top 10 results 32% of the time; overlap hits 89% when only 1 source is cited." That is the share of citations.

Ahrefs (2 March 2026) measured the citation side: "we analyzed 863K keyword SERPs, and a grand total of 4M AI Overview URLs" and found that "37.9% of URLs cited in AI Overviews also appeared within the first 10 blocks."

The same question gives 90% or 32% depending on whether you count AI Overviews or citations, so a figure without its measure says nothing.

Frequently asked questions

Is backlink equity the same as link equity?

Yes. Backlink equity is another way of writing link equity: the value a linking page passes to the pages it links to. PageRank is the score built from it.

Do nofollow links pass link equity?

Google Search Central has called nofollow, sponsored and ugc hints about which links to consider or exclude since 10 September 2019. A regular link needs no rel attribute.

Can you lose link equity?

A link to a URL that returns 404 points at a page that Google's documentation says is dropped from the index, or never processed if the URL is new. A permanent redirect, in Google's words, does not cause a loss in PageRank. The broken-backlinks report lists the first case.

How long does it take for link equity to affect rankings?

Google's recrawl page says crawling can take from a few days to a few weeks, and that sentence is about crawling, not ranking. Our post on how long link building takes answers the question on our own data.

Does linking out reduce your own link equity?

In the 1998 formula, a page's score is built from the pages that link to it. The number of links on the page divides what it passes on to each, so linking out changes what each link carries. The page's own score moves only when what reaches it from the pages that link to it moves.