Breadcrumbs and internal links
-
Hello,
I use to move up my site structure with links in content. I have now installed breadcrumbs, is it is useful to still keep the links in content or isn't there a need to duplicate those links ? and are the breadcrumbs links enough.
Thank you,
-
Thanks for your comment Paul
-
Glad to help
-
Thank both for your answers. There are very helpful and all is clear. I know now that it is best to have both.
-
I think Roman's response is thorough and well reasoned. I'm a content strategist (not a designer or developer), so I like the way his answer puts the user front and center. Bottom line: do in-text links and bread crumb links both help users? Yes, depending where you are on the page and how deep the page is. My instinct on bread crumbs is that their especially helpful once you get a couple pages deep in a site and a user might start to get a bit disoriented. My in-text links are often more driven by the content itself, what will provide added value to the user (or potentially SEO value to another page on the site). Hope that's helpful.
-
As I see you have question about duplicated links and the answer depends on your needs let me explain my point.
Why Redundant Links on the Same Page Are a Good Idea. There are many reasons why you might want to show duplicate links on the same page. Here are some common motivations
- Provide safety nets: If people don’t notice the link the first time, maybe they will notice the second occurrence as they scroll the page. The redundancy may minimize individual differences: one person might notice the link at the top, while another person might notice it at the bottom. Showing links in multiple places is thus hypothesized to capture a broader audience.
- Deal with long pages: Having to scroll all the way up to the top of an overly long page is time-consuming. Offering users alternative ways to access links will help alleviate the pain.
- Create visual balance: Empty space is common on top-level (wayfinding) pages, where content might be sparse or nonexistent. Filling in awkward white space with extra copies of links will make the page look more balanced
- **Follow the evidence: **Analytics show that traffic to desired destination pages increase when links to them are duplicated.
Why Redundant Links Are a Bad Idea (Most of the Time)
Redundancy can be good or bad depending on when it’s applied. Each of the explanations above may sound reasonable. However, relying on redundancy too frequently or without careful consideration can turn your site into a navigation quagmire.What’s the big deal about having a few duplicate links on the page?
- Each additional link increases the interaction cost required to process the link because it rises the number of choices people must process. The fewer the choices, the faster the processing time.
- Each additional link depletes users’ attention because it competes with all others. Users only have so much attention to give and often don’t see stuff that’s right on the screen. So when you grab more attention for one link, you lose it for the others: there’s substantial opportunity cost to extra linking.
- Each additional link places an extra load on users’ working memory because it causes people to have to remember whether they have seen the link before or it is a new link. Are the two links the same or different? Users often wonder if there is a difference that they missed. In usability studies, we often observe participants pause and ponder which they should click. The more courageous users click on both links only to be disappointed when they discover that the links lead to the same page. Repetitive links often set user up to fail.
- Extra links waste users’ time whenever users don’t realize that two links lead to the same place: if they click both links, then the second click is wasteful at best. At worst, users also don’t recognize that they’ve already visited the destination page, causing them to waste even more time on a second visit to that page. (Remember that to you, the distinctions between the different pages on your site are obvious. Not so for users: we often see people visit the same page a second time without realizing that they’ve already been there.)
**CONCLUSION **
Sometimes navigation is improved when you have more room to explain it. If this is the case, duplicating important navigational choices in the content area can give you more flexibility to supplement the links with more detailed descriptions to help users better understand the choices.
Providing redundancy on webpages can sometimes help people find their way. However, redundancy increases the interaction cost. Duplicating links is one of the four major dangerous navigation techniquesthat cause cognitive strain. Even if you increase traffic to a specific page by adding redundant links to it, you may lose return traffic to the site from users who are confused and can’t find what they want.
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
-
Links to external site (hotels link)
Hello, I am currently designing the webpages of my website and I am wondering if I should link externally or if it going to hurt me ? I am in the travel industry and for example in the France in the Loire valley, I want to list hotels that people can stay at in pre and pods trip. Is it ok to link to maybe 10 of those hotels websites or can it hurt me ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Link Building Strategy?
If I use unique content written from writers & post it to good sites (free blogs, bookmarking, directory, articles sites, etc.) having nice good cache, good PR, different IP's do i still have a chance of get hit by Spam actions of google? Planning to do like just 30-50 a month all with unique content or say 1 unique content then re-written & used not more than 3 times. If not this then What else would you suggest? One more thing to add up, like i have 1000+ pages out of which i have like 80-90 pages that matters to me (important pages) then how do I spin the anchor text between all the pages. Should i spin them between 1000+ pages or use only 80-90 IMP pages. If the content is 300 words let say then how many anchor tags should i have?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Spammy Inbound Links
Hello, We have been using Zendesk to manage our customer support tickets for approx 2 years. We recently noticed that the attached forum had lot's of spam comments attached to it. Promoting Viagra and the like. The system was installed as a subdomain of my site support.mysite.com We have since deleted our account with Zendesk but Moz and Google are reporting loads of inbound links to that subdomain that are all total spam with Viagra in the anchor text etc. The subdomain no longer exists and now throws a 404. Can these links still hurt me? Is there other steps I need to take? I have disavowed all the links.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | niallfred0 -
Should We Link To Our News?
We just started an "In the News" section on our webpage. We are not sure what would be the best for SEO purposes. Should we link to the news websites that have the stories about our company, even if they have no link bank? Or should we just take screenshots of the news article and only link to articles that link back to us (this is what we a currently doing)? Here is our news page, http://www.buyautoparts.com/News/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | joebuilder0 -
Counting over-optimised links - do internal links count too?
To whit: In working out whether I've too many over-optimised links pointing to my homepage, do I look at just external links -- or also the links from my internal pages to my homepage? In other words, can a natural link profile from internal pages help dilute overoptimisation from external links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jeepster0 -
Sitewide footer links - bad or not?
Hi, Sitewide footer links, is this bad for SEO? Basically I see all the time the main navigation repeated in the footer, sometimes as almost something to just fill the footer up. Is this bad for SEO (im guessing it is) and can you explain why you think it is? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | activitysuper0 -
Internal followed links query
hi guys, im hoping to get some help with a a question i have about internal followed links. I analysed my site (selling adult toys) on open explorer today against some of my competitors. what i found my internal followed links and total internal links are extremely low compared to the other sites. here was my stats internal follwed links: 177 total internal links: 178 i have over 2000 pages on my website. which i believed to of had a good internal link structure. when compared to my competitors theres was in the thousands. i have looked to see if i could spot any 'no follow' tags but nothing. my site is christiarasextoys.co.uk if anyone can help me out here id really appreciate it
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | skyenicole0 -
First link importance in the content
Hi, have you guys an opinion on this point, mentioned by Matt Cutts in 2010 : Matt made a point to mention that users are more likely to click on the first link in an article as opposed to a link at the bottom of the article. He said put your most important links at the top of the article. I believe it was Matt hinting to SEOs about this. http://searchengineland.com/key-takeaways-from-googles-matt-cutts-talk-at-pubcon-55457 I've asked this in private and Michael Cottam told me he read a study a year ago that indicated that the link juice passed to other pages diminished the further down the page you go. But he can't find it anymore ! Do you remember this study and have the link ? What is your opinion on Matt's point ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | baptisteplace0