Problem with left navigation links on an e-commerce site diluting pagerank
-
I'm trying to decide how to deal with left navigation links on my e-commerce website diluting the amount of link juice passed to other links on the page. Any suggestions? Only options I can think of are:
- Nofollow the links
- use javascript (I'm assuming googlebots are still able to find these)
- Leave them as they are as followed links
-
The links on our left navigation are not category links, they are refinement links within the same category. Here's an example page from our website:
-
You listed three options.....
- Nofollow the links
- use javascript (I'm assuming googlebots are still able to find these)
- Leave them as they are as followed links
Another option is, remove some or all of these links.
Another option is, instead of using these links, figure out how to get the people to use them to a category page where all of these links are presented with a beautiful menu.
.
(If this was my site I would probably add MORE links to that left nav and follow all of them. Don't know if this is the right choice for you but on the sites that I know adding more keyword-rich links brings in more traffic. The minor pages get more juice and all of the keywords in the left nav combine with your page content to bring in more long tail. Might not be highly targeted traffic but its more traffic.)
-
What are the left hand links pointing to? If the pages are unique content, with value, I'd personally leave them. Just make sure that the links to your key content appear before them in your code.
If they don't link to unique content, but still have value (ie price filtering and similar), then you could use rel=canonical on the page and remove the passed variables in webmaster tools.
I'd be more worried about the chance of them creating duplicate content than leaking internal rank. Plus just using NF causes it to dissipate anyway, as Adam says.
-
Nofollowing links will NOT pass more link juice to other links on the page. The link juice simply disappears for nofollowed links. This was put into effect a year or two ago.
-
we have the same problem. it is becoming imposible for me to control these links.. the good amount looks which we can have are 100 but it is difficult to control these links at 100 as we have lot of items on sale and to provide the use easy navigatin must put lot of links in this menu
still finding a solution for this problem
-
The left navigation is the same at the top? If you have more categories it's important to follow these links.
How many products have the page... use pagination and a standar view for users/robots with 100 link aprox. and give the user the posibility of change this view, but the standar view for robots to index is the 100.
I hope it helps!
bye
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What should my site name be?
Hello, I'm a physical therapy clinic in Fort Myers, FL. Currently my website is named "Physical Therapy Fort Myers". My company name is Back In Motion Sport & Spine Physical Therapy. My question is, should I rename my site under my business name or is it OK to keep it as "physical therapy fort myers"?
On-Page Optimization | | backinmotion1230 -
Keywords in Navigation
Hi, What is best practice for main navigation links with regards to use of keywords in them. For example is it best to using the phrase 'Pricing", "Website Pricing" or "Website Design Pricing" To me 'Pricing' is more appropriate because to the user they know they are on a website designer's site so what else would pricing be for right?! Furthermore you use less 'real estate' on the nav bar! There is on page text around the site which has links to "see our website design pricing" etc so I assume that is perhaps a more natural place to include that phrase? Look forward to your insights 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | NeilD0 -
Removing Tag Cloud to Decrease the number of On-Site Links?
I have website which has a tag cloud at the footer. This tag cloud or tag box has about 40 links pointing to different words(tags) pages. I believe that the tags are hardly ever clicked on by visitors, since its at the footer. If the tag cloud is removed would this decrease the number of on-site links? According crawl diagnostics summary I have 195 pages with too many links. Would removing it help? And what kind changes can I expect if they removed (seo wise)?
On-Page Optimization | | utesters0 -
Which Blog Platform to link to an eCommerce site is best?
I just hired a content writer to blog on my site, but I want to make sure I have the right blog set up properly before doing so. I currently have my blog on my own domain. http://alturl.com/ixd7p It's a pretty crappy blog, to be quite frank. (The link to the blog is in the footer). It doesn't allow me to change category titles so it's throwing duplicate content - not good. I am seriously considering getting a self hosted Wordpress blog and linking that to my site instead at 3dcart- so it will be blog.domainname.comMy CONCERN.... I always heard that it's best to have the blog right right on the eCommerce site (just as I have it now) because it keeps feeding the domain fresh content. If I have a self hosted Wordpress blog and have it linked to my site, will it still feed my site fresh content?
On-Page Optimization | | tutugirl0 -
Internal Followed Links and Total Internal Links as 1
It is showing Internal Followed Links and Total Internal Links as 1 in OpenSiteExplorer Tool http://www.expresscasket.com/ http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/comparisons?site=www.expresscasket.com Not able to understand and identify the problem and fix it. But when i check in google webmasters tool, it is showing lots of internal links. Does it differ those internal links and your trace of internal links
On-Page Optimization | | expresscasket0 -
Optimizing E-Commerce Category Pages For SEO
Hey, Does anyone have any tips for optimizing e-commerce category pages? Looking to add content to each category page but not sure where to put the content i.e. above the footer? Above the search results? In the left hand nav bar? Have a landing page which they click through to see search results? If anyone has any good examples or tips it would be much appreciated. cheers David
On-Page Optimization | | DavidLenehan0 -
Nofollow on site-wide banner links
Hi I have a blog in relation to my webshop. On the blog I have two banners linking directly to the webshop on every page (site-wide links). Should I make the banner links nofollow? Thanks, Rasmus
On-Page Optimization | | secubi0 -
Too Many On-Page Links
Hi All, New to SEOMoz, so thanks in advance for any answers! Looking at our Crawl Diagnostics and "Too Many On-Page Links" is first on the list. The site was build with the intention of users being able to quickly get to where they want to go with drop down menus (sub nav), so we built the navigation using bullet points/css. Yes, agreed there are too many links on each page from our navigation, main nav cats are 4 with sub nav about 40, but what is the best way to resolve the problem other then removing most of the links (from the sub nav drop down)? Could we just use the attribute rel=nofollow for the sub nav links? TIA
On-Page Optimization | | bmmedia0