Treat equity as a term, not a visible balance
Link equity and link juice are informal terms for potential value associated with links in search ranking. They are not a public account of transferable points. An arrow in a diagram does not tell you how much a search engine credits a reference. Define the source page, destination, relationship and observation date before discussing a benefit. A publisher’s domain score is a third-party metric, not a reading of Google’s PageRank for this link.
Anchor the explanation in current documentation
Google’s ranking-systems guide describes link analysis and PageRank as part of systems that use many signals. PageRank has evolved since its original formulation. That description does not provide a current formula for calculating a purchased link’s value from a domain score, number of outgoing links or redirect count. Separate a conceptual explanation from a calculation that would require unavailable inputs.
Compare three observable paths
In the direct case A links to C, which returns 200. In the redirect case A still links to B; B returns 301 with C as its destination, and C returns 200. In the broken case A links to B and B returns 404; the case provides no working path to C. These are separate authored configurations, not successive measurements of a real campaign. No live website was queried.
The diagrams show navigation and responses, not a fixed amount of equity passed or lost. A successful 200 response alone does not establish relevance, indexability or a useful recommendation. Conversely, a broken target calls for investigating the resource and ownership before changing anything; redirecting every removed page to an unrelated homepage is not a relevance strategy.
Authored example on reserved domains; no live inspection or measured ranking value.
| Check | Authored evidence | Meaning | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct reference | A → C; 200 | A links directly to C. Inspect the source, context and target; the arrow is not a score. | Source page A |
| Permanent redirect | A → B; 301 → C; 200 | A still links to B. A 301 response from B leads to C; no transfer percentage is inferred. | Variant URL B |
| Broken destination | A → B; 404 | A links to B, which returns 404 in this case. No working navigation to C is shown. | Variant URL B |
| Destination URL | https://shop.example/planner?ref=guide&view=full | href | Destination URL |
| Publishing context | rel="sponsored" | Paid placement | Publishing context |
| Google-selected canonical: unknown in this case | null | Authored example on reserved domains; no live inspection or measured ranking value. | Google-selected canonical: unknown in this case |
Keep qualification and destination evidence separate
Inspect the anchor and its surrounding explanation using the crawlable-link guidance. Record whether a link is editorial, paid or a user contribution and what the actual rel attribute says. Relationship qualification is not a percentage slider. A plain link is not a guarantee of ranking credit. A permanent redirect is a strong canonicalization signal according to Google’s redirect documentation, but that does not expose a per-link transfer percentage.
Use the worksheet to decide what to investigate
Save the raw source href before following redirects. Record each response, the final browser URL and the target’s content purpose. Preserve the source context, observed relationship attributes and UTC inspection time. The JSON download describes the three fictional paths and a separate canonical example; null values mean unknown evidence, not zero value. The blank worksheet is for your own observations, with access failures recorded explicitly.
Prioritize a real user problem: a relevant cited resource that no longer opens, an incorrect destination or a paid reference missing qualification. Confirm ownership and an equivalent replacement before a migration. After an authorized fix, verify the published path again. A ranking change would require separate performance data and cannot be attributed to this single change from a before-and-after arrow.
Report practical limits alongside the result
A useful conclusion is that the source still points to B and the browser reaches C through a 301, with a dated response trace. It is not that C received a specified number of authority points. This guide does not offer an enterprise reclamation service, an easiest-link acquisition formula or guaranteed rankings. Keep third-party metrics, observed page evidence and unknown search weighting in separate fields so later reviewers can see what was actually established.