Social Icons Link to Inner Pages
-
We have the social icons (facebook, twitter, youtube etc) in the footer of our homepage linked to inner pages instead of our actual social accounts. So, if you click on the facebook icon you go to one of our inner pages talking about our facebook profile and why to like us on facebook. Then on this inner page you can get to our facebook profile.
We do this so we can pass on PR juice from our homepage to our inner page, and not lose it right off our front page. Is this a good idea? Or does it just confuse users? Most people think when they click on a facebook icon they will go to an actual facebook profile.
Here is my homepage, http://www.buyautoparts.com/ click on the icons on the footer and let me know your thoughts.
-
Quick reality check here, Brad. Your home page has over 180 links. So each of these social media links you're wondering about is passing 1/180 of the PR juice of the home page. I certainly wouldn't be fussing about this either way. Far bigger challenges to be focusing on.
That said, I certainly wouldn't be risking compromising user experience and user expectations in order to conserve 1/180 of a page's value. I'm not saying you're doing that - I think in some circumstances a dedicated social media page can be great. But as always - make the best decision for your users, not the search engines, especially in this case.
And to reinforce what Adam said - no-following links in NO WAY conserves page rank - that hasn't been the case for well over a year. No-follow has very specific purposes - to denote a link that you don't trust (e.g. from user-generated content like comments) or when the link is a result of a commercial relationship with the target site. The third use , which might apply to a few of your home page links, is to tell the crawlers not to follow links to pages that are of no value to users other than being purely transactional - like your View Cart, Checkout, Create Account, Track Package etc.
The reason to no-follow these isn't to "save Pagerank" but to help conserve crawl budget so the crawlers can spend their time indexing more important pages.
Hope that helps?
Paul
P.S. If I were looking to conserve and transfer front page influence more effectively, I'd be seriously looking at reducing the sheer number of links on the page so the links that remain can transfer more value to the most important pages/sections of the site. Not going to be easy while maintaining usability, but that's where i"d be focusing my attention.
-
Abandoning your website is always something to worry about, always handle outbound links to open on "_blank" windows (new) and include a rel="nofollow" attribute to your links, or simply opt for a good social widget on your own "Social Landing Page" like you are doing it right now, just make sure your social tools are GOOD enough to replace the purpose of the Social media page itself, so you don't disappoint your visitors, since they are expecting to see your FB or Twitter page instead, I dont personally see a problem by adding a click to the process, specially when they will see a nice widget with a lot of faces and posts.
Good luck!
-
There was a post not so long ago that said that if you put nofollow's on your internal links you dont save any page rank it just doesnt get passed along so it evaporates to nothing.
Since then I've taken all nofollows off my internal pages...
-
Hi Brad,
If you are worried about losing the PR off the front page you could just add a "nofollow" attribute to the buttons. Also if you aren't trying to rank the sub-pages then you are kind of wasting the PR anyway, just in a way with one additional step.
Just a thought, hope it is of some help.
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
-
Social Media & SEO
Hi Does anyone have any good articles or case studies on how SEO/Social compliment each other? I know the benefits, I just need something tangible to show management, which justifies me spending more time on it. I currently do a lot of onsite SEO, but I know we're missing the content marketing/social media aspect and it's something I want to push. Any help would be great 🙂 Becky
Social Media | | BeckyKey0 -
Adding links to FB, Googleplus, pininterest, Twitter
HI everyday we are posting new product detail url to FB, Googleplus, pininterest, Twitter. 1. Will this have any value at all in SEO? and also we get question related to the products, we are thinking to post on FB/Google plus with urls and answer.. 2. wht do you think? Pls suggest.. thanks We have blogs in http://domainname.blogspot.in/ and domainname.wordpress.com
Social Media | | Rahim119
we are also pasting the links and some write is happening there as well..0 -
Vanity URL for Google+ page
Hello there, Our company has a Google + business page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/107077834998367309370/about We are trying to change the URL to something more friendly such as https://plus.google.com/wallpapered (Wallpapered being the name of our company) Can you please advise if we have set something up incorrectly? Thanks
Social Media | | roberthseo0 -
Google Plus Co Page Verification Process page saying no longer accepting request
Hi Does anyone know why Google is no longer accepting verification request fro G+ co pages ? cheers dan
Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Social Signals and SEO
What is more beneficial in regards to SEO and Social Signals. A like button that "Likes" your web site or your associated Facebook page?
Social Media | | chris.green0 -
Anyway to have a 'like' button for main page?
I have a Facebook like button on each of my individual posts and a box on my home page where people can 'like' my Facebook fan page..but is there any way to have a Facebook 'like' button on my home page so people can actually like the home page?
Social Media | | NoahsDad0 -
Do facebook shares of deep links help the whole domain rank better?
What i mean by this is if we were to obtain 10-20 facebook shares for 10 different deep links like these: http://domain.com/deep-page/page-one
Social Media | | adriandg
http://domain.com/deep-page/page-two
http://domain.com/deep-page/page-three
http://domain.com/deep-page/page-four
... Would that help any of these rank better:
http://domain.com
http://domain.com/product1
http://domain.com/product2
etc... Extrapolating, does the same count for Twitter, Google+, etc?0 -
Being Blocked by Social Bookmarking sites based on IP
Creating a few (multiple) social bookmarking accounts at multiple sites and getting blocked based on IP (guessing). Disclaimer: a few, not volume here. What is the best way around this? Preferably something simple. Not savvy on VPN. Someone also mentioned Proxies, not sure the best approach on that one. Thanks!
Social Media | | bozzie3110