External Domains & External Link Health
Audit where your site points on the open web: ranked domains, outbound link volume, share bars, and a dedicated health scanner for broken URLs and rel patterns (nofollow / sponsored). Cross-check strategic link rules in Indexing → Link Behavior and macro-level counts in Link Reports.
Before you start
External Domains and External Health live under SEO Rank Genius → Tools & Analytics. They read from the same outbound link index built by your link scans, but answer different questions: who you link to most often vs. whether those destinations still respond and respect your nofollow policy.
You will need:
- A completed site link scan so outbound rows exist in the index (see Link Management & Bulk Scans).
- Administrator credentials — exports and remediation actions assume full plugin access.
- A Pro license for the External Health tab (the domain report is broadly available after scanning; health scanning and leak tables ship on Pro).
External Domains (tab=external-domains)
Open SEO Rank Genius → Tools & Analytics → External Domains. The report header shows when aggregates were generated, plus Export CSV and Refresh so you can hand off data to spreadsheets or regenerate after a crawl.
KPI tiles and distribution
Four KPIs summarize corpus-level behavior: Total Outbound Links (every external anchor), Unique Domains, Avg Links / Domain (helps spot over-reliance on a partner stack), and Last Updated. Below the KPI strip, Domain Distribution compares the share of outbound links credited to top domains versus the long tail — useful when an affiliate program or CDN domain suddenly dominates the chart.
All External Domains table
The sortable, paginated table lists each hostname with Links (raw outbound count), a Share progress bar, Linking Posts (how many source pieces reference that host), and a quick Visit action. Use the search box to filter live while you audit a campaign or vendor footprint.
External Domains Report
Top hosts, outbound share, and linking posts
| # | Domain | Links | Share | Posts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | developers.google.com | 842 | 38% | 126 |
| 2 | schema.org | 510 | 23% | 88 |
| 3 | partner.example | 196 | 9% | 34 |
External Domains — KPI strip for outbound volume, then a ranked table with link counts, share bars, and how many posts reference each host.
External Health (tab=external-health)
The External Link Health workspace runs batched HTTP checks against stored outbound URLs, then surfaces two remediation queues: Broken External Links (non-200 or transport failures) and Dofollow Leaks (external URLs that still pass equity because rel attributes are missing or incomplete relative to your policy).
Status vocabulary
Rows in the broken table show the last HTTP status captured during a scan (for example 404, 410, or timeout). Dofollow leak rows display the effective Rel token the parser saw — none or partial values are the ones to fix with per-link Add nofollow actions or global toggles.
Health status badges
Use these visual tags when triaging scan output: healthy responses, hard errors, and policy gaps on rel.
Health status badges — map HTTP outcomes and rel-policy findings before opening source posts.
External Link Health
Totals for outbound links, breakage, leaks, and confirmed healthy URLs
External Health KPI row mirrors the aggregates used for dashboards — broken and leak tiles should trend down after each remediation pass.
Health scan · batch results
After the spinner reaches 100%, the plugin reloads audited rows. Below is how success vs. regressions commonly appear in summaries.
| Checkpoint | Outcome |
|---|---|
| URLs reassessed this run | 1,240 OK |
| Newly detected broken responses | 3 issues |
| Dofollow leaks closed (nofollow applied) | 12 fixed |
| Still leaking after editor pass | 2 remain |
Health scan results styled with green success chips and red risk chips match the badges used inside Broken vs. Dofollow tables.
Monitoring workflow
These steps keep outbound debt from compounding across releases and redesigns:
Refresh link index
Run a scan after importing content or deploying global header/footer snippets. Until the crawler stores outbound anchors, both tabs show empty prompts.
Normalize partner mix
In External Domains, export CSV snapshots for stakeholder reviews — especially when share bars show one vendor exceeding editorial guardrails.
Run External Health batches
Schedule health scans alongside quarterly content audits; fix broken URLs first so you are not reinforcing dead citations with new internal links pointing at the same paragraphs.
Close loop on rel attributes
Use per-link fixes for surgical cases, enable global nofollow/sponsored when policy demands blanket treatment, and document exceptions in your style guide.
Link behavior settings
Two layers govern how outbound anchors behave:
- Indexing → Link Behavior (full guide) — opener behavior, UX-focused external link toggles, and structural URL settings that coexist with crawler directives.
- Tools → External Health → Global Settings — optional blanket
rel="nofollow"orrel="sponsored"insertion for outbound anchors when editorial policy insists on conservative defaults.
Global external rel defaults
When enabled, the plugin augments anchors site-wide — confirm legal/commercial guidance before flipping both switches.
Global toggles sit at the bottom of External Health — pair them with crawler policy in robots and LLM manifests when you expose AI-specific rules.
rel patterns does not replace robots.txt, llms.txt, or on-page meta directives. Layer them together via Robots.txt & LLMs.txt so crawl budgets and AI permissions stay explicit.
Troubleshooting
“No External Domains Found”
The index is empty. Trigger a full scan from the Dashboard or Link Management, confirm Link Reports shows non-zero external counts, then reload the tab.
CSV export looks stale
Exports mirror the last aggregation stored for the report. Hit Refresh after large editorial pushes or migration scripts so totals match the live index.
Health scan stuck under 100%
Large hosts may need higher PHP max_execution_time temporarily. Check error logs for timeouts, then rerun; partial batches resume from the plugin’s batch controller.
Dofollow leak table disagrees with theme output
Cached page HTML, builder-generated links, or filters from other SEO plugins can differ from the parser snapshot. Clear relevant caches, re-scan, and compare the Rel column against the raw block HTML in the editor.
External counts differ from Link Reports
Link Reports summarizes internal/external mix across the corpus, while External Domains groups by hostname. Rare mismatches typically mean unsaved drafts or CPTs excluded from scanning — reconcile scope under General Settings.