Pin It Button, Too Many Links, & a Javascript question...
-
One of the sites I work for has some massive on-page link problems. We've been trying to come up with workarounds to lower the amount of links without making drastic changes to the page design and trying to stay within SEO best practices. We had originally considered the NoFollow route a few months back but that's not viable. We changed around some image and text links so they were wrapped together as one link instead of being two links to the same place. We're currently running tests on some pages to see how else to handle the issue.
What has me stumped now though is that the damned Pinterest Pin Button counts as an external link and we've added it to every image in our galleries. Originally we found that having a single Pin It button on a page was pulling incorrect images and not listing every possible image on the page... so to make sure that a visitor can pin the exact picture they want, we added the button to everything. We've been seeing a huge uptick in Pinterest traffic so we're definitely happy with that and don't want to get rid of the button. But if we have 300 pictures (which are all links) on a page with Pin It buttons (yet more links) we then have 600+ links on the page. Here's an example page: http://www.fauxpanels.com/portfolio-regency.php
When talking with one of my coders, he suggested some form of javascript might be capable of making the button into an event instead of a link and that could be a way to keep the Pin It button while lowering on-page links. I'm honestly not sure how that would work, whether Google would still count it as a link, or whether that is some form of blackhat cloaking technique we should be wary of.
Do any of you have experience with similar issues/tactics that you could help me with here? Thanks.
TL;DR Too many on page links. Coder suggests javascript "alchemy" to turn lead into gold button links into events. Would this lower links? Or is it bad? Form of Cloaking?
-
This test showed a little light on what is indexed typically: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/can-google-really-access-content-in-javascript-really
-
Loading link via JS is fairly standard technique. (See http://sharethis.com/ or http://www.addthis.com/). Google will index some JS created content so you may have to delay the link tag creation until a mouseenter event to get the desired effect.
Added bonus: using well written JS code can lighten the code weight of the page allowing it to load faster. Currently, each Pin icon contains a div, a link and an image tag. If you use prototyping, JS can replicate all this content from the attributes of the primary image tag very quickly. (I see you load jQuery so this task is very easy to accomplish)
Also, move the rel="words" in the link into the img tag as an alt attribute. Current the images lack alt tags which isn't the best. Using keywords in the rel attribute isn't correct. It is supposed to mark up the relationship to between items and "Stacked Stone Panels" isn't a relationship. You may have been thinking of the title attribute.
Next, you are loading WAY too many resource files (mainly js). A few items twice. Try combining them into a few minified files. There is a lot of work that could be done to speed up the site: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/130320_PT_12RV/ over 25 seconds to load.
Think about making a sprite of the images, it would save a ton of requests and downloads. Also, pagination, if done correctly, could save a lot of time.
-
Thanks guys! My coder is going to look over all of the best possible ways we could implement this and then we're going to see about doing a little testing on one of our galleries. Thanks again.
-
To my knowledge, Google does only "simple" Javascript. For instance
will be spidered as a link. if you have your click event do something more arcane (like call a function) it won't be. If you want to further obfuscate it from Google, add your click event by using an observer (like JQuery's $().click() function).
Google, to my knowledge, has never spidered AJAX. AJAX may not contain any human readable content.
-
No known negatives associated with doing that? If not then we might give it a test run on one of the galleries.
-
There was no negative impact after the Pin It button was added and effectively doubled the number of on-page links.
As for the Ajax loading idea, that was actually another one of the ideas that my coder had but I wasn't sure of what the effect would be on Googlebot indexing and following images. Though all the newer photos do get added to the top which would be visible if we implemented that.
-
That is definitely a lot of links... but have you noticed a negative SEO impact because of the pin it buttons? Having that many links isn't ideal, but it probably won't affect your site that much.
Alternatively, you can try loading some of the images via AJAX so that they aren't all displayed at once, and only load when the user scrolls down.
-
In my opinion I believe the correct implementation is to use the JavaScript event. I've seen it implemented this way on a few ecommerce sites that I know are doing well.
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
-
Community Discussion: UX & SEO – Your experience?
We've been looking at the relationship between SEO & UX a bit more closely lately on the blog. Our good pal Cyrus started the wheels turning with a tweet: https://twitter.com/CyrusShepard/status/748296076411625473 ...and that morphed into a Whiteboard Friday idea, which was filmed and posted here: https://moz.com/blog/ux-vs-seo-whiteboard-friday We shared the story of one site that enjoyed rapid growth and that subsequently battled with managing that UX/SEO relationship on Thursday. And it's hard, right? UX and SEO teams often operate independently of one another, and may make decisions that affect one another's work. Sometimes it's a "hindsight is 20/20" situation. Sometimes the answer is so radical and impactful that you may want to settle for a "safe" alternative. I'd imagine many of you have encountered some big issues with user experience and search optimization in your day-to-day over the years. What's the most difficult situation you've encountered with this? How did you resolve it? (I'd bet money on there being some really creative solutions out there :). Is there a particularly challenging situation you're struggling with now that you'd want to share & crowdsource ideas for?
Web Design | | FeliciaCrawford3 -
Affects of a Home Link 301 Permanent Redirect in the Main Nav Bar
Hi I created a home page link in the main nav bar using functions.php request, and this leads to the home page, and it works fine. The logo on the site when clicked, resolves the home page domain.com which is fine. Is it ok to have a home page link in my main nav bar, as well as a clickable logo which on-click returns the web user to the home page also? (any seo implications with the permanent 301 redirects?) I like to give web users the choice especially as not all users are aware that they can click back to the home page by clicking on the logo. I considered breadcrumbs already. Thanks.
Web Design | | SEOguy10 -
Show new mobile site to 60% users & old mobile site to 40% users
Hi, We are planning to show new mobile site to 60% users & old mobile site to 40% users. We will show the old site to google crawler. Our old site has some interlinking through footer & content whereas the new site does not has it. We wanted to do this since our new site does not supports some browsers. Will there be an issue with Google on showing the site like this. The mobile site & desktop site will have same url across devices & browsers. Regards
Web Design | | vivekrathore0 -
Booking Engine SEO Question
Hello, I am working on a travel site-mostly content based, but for the deals section of the site, we were thinking of being powered by expedia...if we go with a booking engine (Expedia) will that hurt us with regards to SEO? If Google is looking for content and not another booking engine how can we overcome this? Do you think this approach is positive? any thoughts or advice on this, thanks so much.
Web Design | | lanigreg0 -
Question & Answers Forum pluggin for wordpress
I am looking to install on my website a Question & Answers Forum pluggin for wordpress Like MOZ Q&A What pluggin do you recommend for questions and answers Would be to replace the one on this site that i don't like due to some problems i have on configuration. http://www.propdental.es/dentista/
Web Design | | maestrosonrisas0 -
HTML5 & the doc outline algorithm
Hi My web team are currently working on an updated site using Drupal and have asked me the following question: Is more than one H1 tag with the same value an issue for SEO with HTML5 and the doc outline algorithm? Can anyone help with this please? I appriciate any responses. Thanks in advance. Chris
Web Design | | Fasthosts0 -
AJAX & JQuery Tabs: Indexation & Navigation
Hi I've two questions about indexing Tabs. 1. Let's say I have tabs, or an accordion that is triggered with Jquery. That means that all HTML is accessible and indexed by search engines. But let's say a search query is relevant to the content in Tab#3, while Tab#1 is the one that's open by default. Is there any way that Tab#3 would be open directly if it's more relevant to the search query? 2. AJAX Tabs: We have pages that have Tabs triggered by AJAX (example: http://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/help/loesung/entfernen-sie-sim-lock.html). I'm wondering about the current best practice. Google recommends HTML Snapshots. A newer SEOMoz Article talks about pushState(). What's the way to go here? Or in other words: How to get Tabs & Accordion content indexed and allow users to navigate directly to it?
Web Design | | zeepartner0 -
Is it more beneficial to have internal links without the full file path?
When linking internally in my site is it more beneficial to have links written like, Fast Blenders OR Fast Blenders
Web Design | | tickettoss0