“If They’re Not Indexed, I Wouldn’t Assure The Links Do Anything” – John Mueller

Have links from de-indexed sites and have been wondering if they are still valuable links that passes link juice through? Wondering what to do with these links?
Marie Aquino
January 13, 2022

Days ago, we talked about Mueller’s statement that toxic links should just be ignored and how tools make assumptions about Google that just aren’t correct.

This time around, a twitter user asked if links from not indexed pages are something to worry about.

Mueller responded that if they are not indexed, he wouldn’t assure the links do anything. He then clarified that he was talking about the dreaded link-juice-cascade and that links can still be useful to get users to visit the site.

He also added that links that are on indexed pages can still be ignored and there is no API for testing if a page is indexed or not, so SEO tools can’t do that without breaking the Google terms of service.

We’ve always wondered if deindexed sites pass juice and could affect rank and the SEO Intelligence Agency have tested this a number of times and found that they indeed pass juice and can affect rank, despite what Google has repeatedly said in the past. Mueller still retains that they do not do anything.

With all the updates that have happened in the past year, perhaps it is also time to retest this and see if the results of our previous testing still remain. We’ll definitely add it on our list of things to test.

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