I use Yoast to optimize the SEO for my website. For my posts, I fill out meta description, keywords, etc.

However, part of my website is drudgereport style, where i post a headline which links out to another website's url. Therefore, when i create that post, it only includes a title and a link out to an external url (i.e. no content).

My question is, should I fill out meta description, keywords, etc for the posts that only link to an external url?

Thanks!


(P.S. I use plugin Page Links to for linking my post to an external url, if that makes a difference).

So you are essentially giving someone else a back link and are curious if you can also rank for the keywords/phrase in the link?

So in the ideal you would have this page SEO-optimized for the link with no content?

Think it through, no point in trying to optimize that page because it isn't going to rank being content-less.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks Larry. Sorry I am a dang noob.

I just wasn't sure if I would get in trouble, if the page turns up in google search with my website name but when you click it is a different site's page.

But since it won't rank then I suppose I shouldn't have anything to worry about.

That's great, less work for me.

Thanks Larry I appreciate it!

What you are doing is linking to another site.

In the earliest days of Google, this was the most importantant SEO factor (still is) and was fairly revolutionary at the time. The idea that sites linking to you makes you an authority.

This has changed and is now the most authoritative sites linking to you that matter. If you have 1000 bad links pointing to a post of yours, you will get penalized, where 3-5 years ago you could probably get away with it.

Now the strategy is to produce great content so that people will naturally be inclined to link to it. Exactly what you are doing for this other site. Depending on what anchor text you use (the text that is hyperlinked) that is the search term you are helping them rank for. If it aligns with other links, the better. If the page already ranks somewhat high for that keyword, etc.

If you create good content and get it linked to by authorities, you've won.