What is an External Link?

Why External Links Matter in SEO and UX?

‍While some marketers fear sending users away from their site, strategic external linking actually boosts authority and user trust.

• Building Trust and Credibility: Linking to authoritative, high-domain sources (like a Gartner report or a Forbes article) to back up your claims proves to B2B buyers that your software’s value proposition is rooted in data.
• SEO Relevance: Google's algorithm analyzes who you link to as a way to understand your own website's niche and quality. Linking to spammy sites hurts you; linking to industry leaders associates your brand with quality.
• Partnership Building: Linking to integrated software partners or complementary SaaS tools is a great way to initiate co-marketing relationships and earn reciprocal backlinks.
• User Experience Rule: Best practice dictates that external links should automatically open in a new browser tab (target="_blank"), ensuring the user doesn't lose their place on your website.

Example from Flowtrix Projects

‍When we design Enterprise Resource Hubs, we meticulously manage external link attributes. We implement automated scripts in Webflow that force all external partner links to open in a new tab. Additionally, we use rel="noopener" tags to ensure there are no security vulnerabilities created when passing traffic from the client's site to a third-party domain.