Too Many on page links! Will "NoFollow" for navigation help?
-
I am getting to many on page links ( for all my pages). Here is my website:
http://www.websterpowerproducts.co.uk
I think it is to do with the the navigation bar down the right hand side. I don't really want to get ride of this as it offers users a way of getting where they want without lots of clicking.
I was wondering if adding a "NoFollow" tag to each of they links would stop the link juice getting diluted by the navigation bar.
Many Thanks
-
From Google's perspective: "If those pages are 'non-important' why are you linking to them from the navigation on every page?"
I didn't see any right-hand navigation, but I did see navigation on the left side. I do not see an issue with it, however, as this is an important way to get people and search engine spiders to category and eventually product pages. Perhaps you are thinking too hard about this so I will throw my opinion in along with the three other experienced SEOs above who all I think agree on this:
Do not nofollow your navigation links. Do not get rid of them. Do not worry about losing "link juice" into those pages.
If you truly think a page is unimportant, such as a category that doesn't sell many products, consider removing it from the navigation. Here's an example of how that might be done in this case:
I see the fly-out navigation to sub-categories includes all sub-categories for each main category. You could choose the top five sub-cats and then include a "See more categories" type of link instead of showing them all. This could be useful on a long list of sub-cats like the one under "Power Tool Accessories". You could limit the navigation to just two categories deep instead of including the third fly-out navigation level (e.g. Power Tool Accessories --> Bit Sets --> Socket Sets).
If the argument is that those third level categories are useful to visitors, thus you want to leave them there, then you have answered your question. Leave them. Don't worry about page-rank. If they are important enough for visitors to want them there and to use them, they are important enough to have their small share of pagerank.
If you choose to ignore all of this advice and want them to be there, but not pass pagerank, you can change the way your navigation operates by using a script so there aren't actually any href tags on the page for the navigation. All of the links would be controlled in the script, which would be placed in an external .js file, which could be inside a folder that is blocked in the robots.txt file. I don't recommend it, but that's one way to do it.
-
I would definitely not use no-follow, that just doesn't make any sense as your navigation links are part of your link juice to those pages.
Also, no-follow is meant for links that are outside a webmasters control or for paid links so they are not intended to be used by a webmaster on his own site linking to his own content.
As for too many links in the navigation (at least that is what I assume you meant), that indeed can be a problem for useability. It is always a good idea to see how well-known brands handle this problem, so have a look at for example http://www.ebay.com/ and http://www.amazon.com/
By not showing all links directly in the navigation you can have both a more user friendly website and get rid of the issue you think you have with search engines as then you can better funnel the link juice to the more important pages.
-
Matt Cutts says: Don't no-follow internal links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bVOOB_Q0MZYHe also points out the "issue" of too many links per page is not an issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l6g5hoBYlf0 -
Thank you for your answer.
I am actually trying to stop lnk juice for passing through the navigation bar as I think it is just diluting up the page rank to non-important pages.
-
Unfortunately it won't. Some time ago (like one or two years) Google has announced a change in the way they handle nofollow in combination with link juice. Adding nofollow will only prevent juice from flowing to those pages, but won't distribute it over the other pages like it would when the nofollow'ed links weren't there.
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
-
Will page be marked as 404 if you replace country specific letters from url?
What I'm reffering to is replacement of Polish characters from i.e "ł" to "l" or "ę" to "e". I believe it relates same way as other similar Slavic languages.
On-Page Optimization | | Optimal_Strategies0 -
Positioning rethinking regarding triplicate keyword "landing pages"
Hi! We're rethinking our website and we have some doubts on how it would affect our positioning. Our main keyword right now is "casas de madera". Positioning by this keyword we have three different "main" pages: Our home (http://www.canexel.es/) 2)SEO landing page (http://www.canexel.es/casas-de-madera/) 3)A blog section (http://www.canexel.es/blog/casas-de-madera/) We thought at first about changing our home main keyword, but this option has been ruled out since is the keyword that gives us the most visits and changing it would result on a rebrandindg strategy we are not sure we want to pursue. We're thinking about a canonical from the landing page (2) to our Home (1) and making it disappear from our website. Regarding our blog we've thought about removing the blog section. We've thought about a 301 from every post to a new category or just deleting the category "casas de madera" from our site and telling google not to index the section (3) but continue indexing the posts we already have published under this category. Would any of these harm our positioning? And, if so, is ther any other steps you wolud recomend us taking? In this same topic, we're about to create a SEM Landing page for this same keyword. This page will be very visual and with little text. We are not sure if we should have a canonical pointing from it to our home or just not indexing the new SEM landing page. What would you recommend? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Canexel0 -
What are "stop" words in Title Tags?
My client is following his GoDaddy SEO Checklist, and it is reporting 5 errors in Title Tags, saying the Titles contain "stop" words. I can't figure out what these are. Any ideas?
On-Page Optimization | | cschwartzel0 -
E-commerce On Page Concern - Links and Anchor Text
Hi, how you doing? I have a set of very specific questions or concerns about anchor text and linking on an e-commerce category page. I was wondering if you could give your opinions and counsel. I own an e-commerce store about steel construction products. I have several category and product pages. One example of my categories is this. URL http://aceromart.com/Losacero-25-Ternium.aspx My concerns or questions: I have several technical specs or sheets. Which i include the link on the right part in "Informacion Adicional". How should i link those? I am bit worried on the anchor text. Should i use something like [download "product" technical sheet] or just [technical sheet of product] . I dont want to cannibalize, but i also want to appear as descriptive as possible. what would you recommend? The same thing happens on my videos. How should i link my videos? Is there a best practice? **what would you recommend. ** Thanks in advance for your opinions!
On-Page Optimization | | JesusD0 -
Is the use of some keywords necessary to be included in many of the pages?
Hello, I have a website about SEO and webdesign. I want to ask will mentioning these two keywords in many of my articles have any benefit for particular landing pages that I have. F.e.: I have two pages: example.com/seo example.com/web-design They are optimized and have Grade A in SEOMOZ's onpage tool for their two keywords. So my question is: Will broad use of my keywords SEO and webdesign in the text, title or alt not only on my two landing pages but also in other articles of my website also help these two pages to rank higher for their keyword. I see in Webmaster Tools (http://images.seroundtable.com/google-content-keywords-1351084751.jpg) there is an option to see the content keywords in your website. May be that shows that the content in my website is more relevant to particular topic and that also can influence the ranking of my two landing pages.
On-Page Optimization | | HrishikeshKarov0 -
How do you avoid getting hit for too many links with an ecommerce site?
On my campaign for www.fourcolormagnets.com one of my warnings was "too many on-page links". Is there any thing to do for ecommerce sites? and also, my page www.fourcolormagnets.com/rectangle-sizes.php is listed as having 744 links but, I count nowhere near that number. And idea where this comes from?
On-Page Optimization | | JHSpecialty0 -
Will unstyled bold tags help ranking
I intend using Bold tags to add emphasis but I don't want to
On-Page Optimization | | YGF
actually show bold words
so have amended by css. are the B tags enough to help with SEO or will my amended
CSS damage the effect? Many thanks,Sinead0 -
My nofollow link is showing as a 302\. Is this OK?
My nofollow link is showing as a 302. Is this OK? Not looking to pass any juice along but don't want to be penalized either. Thanks Buhrly
On-Page Optimization | | Buhrly0