Seo
Jul 15, 2026
Why a Footer Link and a First-Paragraph Link Are Not the Same — PageRank, Reasonable Surfer, and How to Distribute Link Equity
Google's Reasonable Surfer Model weights link equity by click probability — a first-paragraph in-content link passes far more equity than the same link in a footer, because users are more likely to click it. Here's the PageRank formula and damping factor, how position, anchor text relevance, and visual prominence determine link click probability, why exact-match anchor text is safer for internal than external links, and what an internal link audit should look for in orphaned pages and link depth.