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I Made My Article More “Trustworthy” and Lost Rankings
Posted by on March 21, 2026 at 6:42 pmI had an article ranking on page 1 in Google.
Recently, I watched a video from Edward Sturm about improving SEO by adding outbound links to authoritative sources. It made sense, so I went back and updated the article.
Before, I had references to medical studies, but they were just mentioned in text, not clickable. I changed that and added proper outbound links (dofollow) to reputable sites like WebMD and NHS.
The content itself didn’t change. Same structure, same intent, same information. The only real difference was making those references clickable and more “legit”.
Four days later, the article dropped from page 1 to page 2, around position 16.
I’m honestly trying to understand what happened.
Did adding those links somehow dilute the page’s focus?
Did it shift the perceived intent from practical to more academic?
Or was it just a re-evaluation after Google recrawled the page?What’s interesting is that before, with no active links, it was ranking just fine. After improving the references and pointing to high-authority sources, it dropped.
This seems to go against the usual advice that linking out to trusted sources helps with credibility and SEO.
Curious if anyone else has experienced something similar after adding outbound links.
Right now it just feels like I improved the article and got a worse result.
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1 Reply
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Give it some time. Could be cuz your update dropped temporarily. also those links are taking away from your authority. if it’s still the same after some time, change the dofollow to nofollow. but just relax and see what happens with it for like a few weeks.
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Outbound links do absolutely nothing to SEO. Anyone can link to any page – it doesnt give you any authority whatsoever. Its a failed idea that people fabricated to encouarge people to backlink out.
Edwards reference for this is based on an “experiment” run by an agency that he shared that I took a look at. I discussed this with him and last night with another member of the sub.
The case study involved 4 brand new domains where 2 domains have outbound links and 2 dont. The 2 with outbound links ranked higher. The flaw or “intentional” magic in the case study seems designed to product this ouput. They claimed that to make the study equitable – each page would get the exact same links.
And this is where it gets interesting – I suspect that the people who created the test knew that dilution of links in a page is not exactly linear or proportional – the first links get more authority flow.
To me it was setup to prove the case study. And nobody questioned it.
Google – from Matt Cutts through to John Mueller this year have been adamant that it does nothing.
>What’s interesting is that before, with no active links, it was ranking just fine. After improving the references and pointing to high-authority sources, it dropped.
How long were you ranking, how many clicks did you get/ I assume that this was standard rotation testing and you didn’t have enough basis Topical Authority points to survive – this is really common.
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Right now it just feels like I improved the article and got a worse result.You cannot “improve” an article – you can change it. If the audience agrees its an improvement – or it works – then your CTR might carry you through. But “improvement” is highly subjective – and its a mutli-dimensional scale (its not a strictly linear plane)
The first thing I do at new projects is strip outbound links. I know a lot of Content Agencies who have had heated debates with me and clients about this and believe in content “quality” checking by Google insist on it – but we’ve removed citations and lost no rankings. However – we’ve seen much better internal ranking flow – and thats the point of SEO. Thats why understanding the mechanism of SEO is, to me, more important than following “North Star” rules like this.
Hope that helps u/KetoByDanielDumitriu
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why would outbound links help your website? that doesn’t make much sense. links to your site help you and links to other sites helps them. not the other way around.
any changes could damage the rank when you are page one. it is a risk making such changes. re-evaluation is a good way to put it.
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> It made sense, so I went back and updated the article.
What’s the logic behind it? How would adding outbound links make your page rank higher?
On the other hand, I don’t see how this would negatively impact your ranking either. Did you track your keyword ranking the whole time? Were you locked in on P1 before you made the changes?
My guess is that it’s either standard SERP volatility or the March update. Highly unlikely that adding a couple outbound links is the reason your page dropped.
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If you’re linking to better sites with the same content, you’re really only helping them. And this is the only the second time I’ve ever heard this guy’s name but both times I’ve had to correct him. So… I’m not sure what that says, but…
What he is likely referring to, but mistakenly interpreting it, is for citing facts – not to try to associate yourself with them.
So when you say, “A recent report says 95% of all whatevers do whatever” – you should link to the source of that data. And this is really something that stems from the YMYL niche and it’s just now starting to maybe appear in areas outside of that a bit more.
The main reason Wikipedia is a big thing with all these tools is the structure that it gives on virtually every subject. But the secondary reason is not so much that the content is good – but that it’s proving everything it claims or says via citations. (And they’re also using proper HTML that no one knows anymore to use <cite> tags other markup.
So if outbound links are going to help you – it’s in a way like your research papers in school where you had to cite all your sources. And then even that’s only really necessary if you’re drawing conclusions and trying to show the original sources of the information that makes you come to those conclusions. And that, for most businesses, is not all that often.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t link out at all – Google does seem to hate cul-de-sacs. But Strum got it wrong. Citation links are important when it’s important to cite your source. And since that’s the source, they’re automatically the authority on that information. You’re not going out to just look for authority sites to link to so you can say “Hey Google look at me, I’m with him!” You’re linking to the *absolute* authority on the information/date your speaking about.
G.
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Not only do outbound links not make your own page somehow magically more trustworthy, if people follow those links then they will potentially leave your website for another one which means they spend less time on yours. Honestly don’t try to game it. Use the relevant links where they’re needed and welcome, where they provide value to your site users, without trying to add or remove any just to play the system. Focus on what your site users actually want from your site.
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Outbound links have very different influence in my experience.
The connection of the link with the topic of the keyword is important. If Google doesn’t make the natural connection, it may bother the algo to understand the topic of your page.
When the source starts being really off topic, Google may think your page has a distinctive topic.
That being said there has been a long and big update this month so it may be a total different cause.
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Leave it for longer and report back – more often than not, the drop is temporary and the page will bounce back on its own.
Google has a system where a page can be deliberately dropped in the SERPs quickly after changes are made, and it’s purely done to see if the changes are then reversed.
Quick reversal of the changes = Sign of possible manipulative intent.
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