Whats the best practice for internal links?
-
Hi our site is set up typically for a key product (money page) with 6 to 12 cluster pages, with a few more associated blog pages.
If for example the key product was "funeral plans" what percentage of the internal anchor text links should be an exact match?
Will the prominence of those links eg higher up the page have an impact on the amount of juice flowing?
And do links in buttons count in the same way as on page anchor text eg "compare funeral plans"?
Many thanks
Ash -
@AshShep1 Exact Match Anchor Text: Use different types of words for links, not just the exact product name. It's better for search engines.
Where Links Are: Links at the top of the page might get noticed more, but it's more important that they make sense with the rest of the page.
Links in Buttons: Links in buttons work like regular links, so use words that make sense for the link and the button.
-
When you write, say, a long blog post, you might mention many different products that you sell, then you might want to add an internal link to the page, that sells that product.
It helps the customer find products that they might want to buy.
so we need to add internal links to all of these pages.
-
You are welcome
-
That's really helpful
Many thanks for taking the time
Ash
-
The rel=canonical element helps us determine which version of a URL is the original when multiple version of a URL returns the same content. This can happen when, for example, you append a tracking notation to a URL. Two discrete URLs then exist, yet both have identical content. By implementing a rel=canonical, you can tell us the original one, giving us a hint as to where we should place our trust. Do not use this element in place of a proper redirect when moving content.
Take for example the following URLs
- http://over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/wills-and-probate
- http://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/wills-and-probate
- https://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/wills-and-probate
- https://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/wills-and-probate?ref=twitter
- https://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/wills-and-probate/amp
Each URL is referring to the same page content for Legal Services, however, the URLs themselves are slightly different.
This can be an issue for search engines because the engine itself doesn’t necessarily know which page should be the source of truth, and it may just choose a canonical URL algorithmically for you.
In other words, if you have a web page accessible by multiple URLs, or different pages with similar content (ie. separate mobile and desktop versions), you should specify to a search engine which URL is authoritative (canonical) for that page.
In the Google Search Console, you can find the option to set URL parameters, once your website is verified. What this does is give you the ability to tell Google which parameters you would like to consider passive. What this means is that you can tell Google, “whenever you see this URL parameter, just treat it like it doesn’t exist”.
These are 2 good sources of what I'm talking about Google and Moz
-
Hi Roman
Thank you for your help.
Im looking at the speed issue as well.
None of our pages have the canonical tag on them - why is this so important?
Ash
-
Site: https://www.over50choices.co.uk/ “funeral plans”
Checking on Google there are 1,430 results for that keyword on your site
So that is starting point easy and fastInternal Links
- Input URL: https://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/funeral-plans
- Total links: 124
- External links: 19 - (15%) of Total links
- Duplicate links: 45 - (36%) of Total links
- Empty anchor: 0
- No alt tag: 1
- Nofollow count (Line-through): 1
According to the On-Page Grader Tool
https://analytics.moz.com/pro/research/page-graderThese are some basic points to improve
- Avoid Keyword Stuffing
- Keyword Placement in Page Title
- Optimal Use of Keywords in Header Tags
- Includes a Rel Canonical Tag ----> This is very Important
-
I made a quick audit of your website and will make some assumptions
This is your flagship page
https://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/funeral-plansAs I see you already have a good backlink profile but suddenly you have been losing ranks these are some advice to you
- check the spam score of all your backlinks (Here on Moz is called Spam Score on Semrush is Called Toxic Score)
- build internal links (I will assume that you are working on that right now)
- disavow all the useless links
- build new backlinks
Also, I notice a Drop on ranks on October (Ahref rank) keeping in mind that you are in a competitive niche all the details are important
- You need to figure out how to improve your user experience, making a quick test on PageSpeed there are several small tasks that you can perform to improve it (Enable the compression, Leverage, Browser Cache) By itself will not show a big impact but the summary of all of them can show a big impact. AMP can give you more visibility on mobile devices
-
Thank you for your detailed answer, its much appreciated.
Our site is www.over50choices.co.uk is well established with a national presence.
We have 5 or 6 "cornerstone" products and until recently have been successful with most of them through natural search, we do v little PPC.
We have seen "funeral plans" and "over 50 life insurance" rankings drop from top half of page 1 to bottom/page 2 positions which of course impacts our earnings.
Our site has always been set up in the way that you suggest, so the reason for my questions are because we have been looking at ways to squeeze every last bit of juice we can and more recently have read about the importance of internal links, so was keen to understand whether the sidebar site wide links was not the most effective way to structure the site going forwards?
They have always been there but if google has changed the rules recently i was wondering whether this is what could be hurting us.
We have started a review of internal links for these products as we have so many and the early findings are that we could do with some tidying up but nothing major.
All of our other long tail keywords are still performing well, so its just the big keywords that generate a lot of our income that have dropped.
Does this info help shed any more light on why they may have dropped?
Thanks
Ash
-
Just to clarify then, having to say 300 links all with the same anchor text and most with an exact match to the main keyword/product is ok?
I will assume that you want to rank your site for the keyword funeral plans
I'll explain exactly what I would doBut first, you need to be clear in some basic concepts
The structure of a website and your internal link is of great importance for its
chances to rank in search engines. For two main reasons:1 A decent structure and internal linking make sure Google ‘understands’ your site.
2 A decent structure makes sure you do not compete with your own content.Important terms and definitions that you have to keep in mind to understand what I'm doing
Keyword research (I will assume that you already did it and you know what is)
Long tail keywords in your case these are some examplesprepaid funeral plans - Volume 100 - Keyword Difficulty: 08
cost of prepaid funeral plans - Volume 50 - Keyword Difficulty: 07
low-cost funeral plans - Volume 40 - Keyword Difficulty: 04Landing pages are the main pages through which visitors enter your
website.In this case, I will assume you are a local business
so one of your landing pages will look like thisAll depends on your site structure and your content
Cornerstone contents are the most important articles or pages on your website.
This is the content that exactly reflects your business. These articles
should be relatively high in your site structure. In most cases, the
homepage directly links to these pages or articlesIn affiliate marketing, this content is called Money Pages
Definition: A piece of content that is monetized in some fashion, such as
promoting products as an affiliate, capturing leads to sell them to a
3rd party or heavy advertisement.Here on Moz is called 10X content
https://moz.com/blog/how-to-create-10x-content-whiteboard-fridayWhat is cornerstone content?
https://yoast.com/what-is-cornerstone-content/So instead on focus on anchor text or internal links or link counts
the first question and the most important that you need to answer is- What is your main content?
- What is your business about?
So if you provide funeral plans on a specific location
all your business needs to be focused on that ( SEO, PPC, Social Media) all your internal links will be focused on those pages. You don't just start to build internal link just because you read an article about it. **I need to have a goal in mind **Example
Title: Affordable Funeral Plans Miami - Title
URL: wwww.yourwebsite.com/funeral-plans/So this what I would do on your case
- **Define your cornerstone content (Your internal links will point to these) **
- **Make a keyword research looking for all closed related term of your main keyword **
- Building internal links to those pages using the keywords above (main+secondary)
- Make almost perfect On-page optimization
- Add Schemas to that page to add even more visibility
- **Add Amp version of that page **
- **Finally, build some back-links to those pages **
Hope this info helps you to answer your question
-
Yes its in the sidebar.
Just to clarify then, having say 300 links all with the same anchor text and most with an exact match to the main keyword/product is ok ?
Also if say i have an internal link in the main body of content for one of the pages linked that is also in the sidebar which will google take as the primary link eg sidebar link is "over 50 life insurance" and link in page content is "compare life insurance" both going to the same page?
Ash
-
I'm assuming that you are talking about a widget when you say "Quick Links Boxes" in the sidebar or in the footer or any other specific area. There's no need to remove them but you need to keep in mind that all those links will make those pages outstand over other pages.
So your main question is this. Do you want to make those pages your **10X content (Most relevant pages) **If the answer is positive keep the Link Box if not just remove it.
-
HI Roman
Thank you for your answer.
We also have site wide "Quick Links" boxes on most pages where we have a list of anchor text with links eg
- Equity Release Calculator
- Compare funeral plans
- Affordable Health Insurance
- Over 50 Life Insurance
These are in addition to on page text links.
So google will see hundreds of links coming in to these key pages all with the same anchor text - should we continue with this or remove them?
Regards
Ash
-
If for example, the key product was "funeral plans" what percentage of the internal anchor text links should be an exact match? there is no static rule about it, so your starting point will be your own Search Console Account and your GA Account
Unlike external links, where over-optimization of anchor text is manipulative and can lead to penalties, internal links should have optimized anchor text. Using keyword-rich anchor text is helpful to both search crawlers and users clicking the link.
My advice is to select all your target keyword and all the close variation and start to create internal links on this way
**Check your most relevant pages **
1. Pages that had high traffic and PA. You can find these in Google Analytics, Search Console and Ahrefs
2. Pages where the keyword already existed unlinked. You can use this query to find such pages: Site:[yoursite.com] “funeral plans”In your case, searching for “funeral plans” will show you a number of mentions
After making a list of these pages add internal links by hand. (This is my personal option other people use tools, plugins or whatever) These new links from established posts showed Google that you thought of this page as “important.”Will the prominence of those links eg higher up the page has an impact on the amount of juice flowing?
First and foremost, internal links are important because they help search engines better understand your site.
A large number of internal links pointing to a specific page signal that page is important and helps search engines determine which pages to return in their search results.
Sometimes a broader category page will rank above a specific product page for a query about that specific product — this is less than ideal.
For example, a company that sells different types of bats could see their general “Bats” category page ranking above their “Softball bats” page for the query [cheap softball bats]. Internally linking to the “Softball bats” page could help Google recognize it should be returning that page for the given query.
And do links in buttons count in the same way as on page anchor text eg "compare funeral plans"? It will help you to pass link juice to your page but it will not help Google to understand the content of that page (It will not help you to rank for your target keyword)
** I hope this info helps you to answer your question**
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
-
Best Practice Approaches to Canonicals vs. Indexing in Google Sitemap vs. No Follow Tags
Hi There, I am working on the following website: https://wave.com.au/ I have become aware that there are different pages that are competing for the same keywords. For example, I just started to update a core, category page - Anaesthetics (https://wave.com.au/job-specialties/anaesthetics/) to focus mainly around the keywords ‘Anaesthetist Jobs’. But I have recognized that there are ongoing landing pages that contain pretty similar content: https://wave.com.au/anaesthetists/ https://wave.com.au/asa/ We want to direct organic traffic to our core pages e.g. (https://wave.com.au/job-specialties/anaesthetics/). This then leads me to have to deal with the duplicate pages with either a canonical link (content manageable) or maybe alternatively adding a no-follow tag or updating the robots.txt. Our resident developer also suggested that it might be good to use Google Index in the sitemap to tell Google that these are of less value? What is the best approach? Should I add a canonical link to the landing pages pointing it to the category page? Or alternatively, should I use the Google Index? Or even another approach? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wavelength_International0 -
Best practice to 301 NON-WWW pages?
Hi Guys, Have a site which has 302 redirects installed for pages like: https://domain.com.au/ to https://www.domain.com.au/ (302 redirect) Is it worth changing the redirect to a 301? This is a large site, like 10,000 pages. Also does anyone know how can this be done via Magento? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bridhard80 -
Link Types For Link Building
Hi i have a SEO agency we work with who are building quality guest post links for us, however they are also building forum, profile, blog comments
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spyaccounts14
and directory based links. 60% of their links they are building are high quality, relevant guest posts while the other 40% are the other link types. The 40% seem to be relevant directories, forums, blog comments, etc. They said they build other link types because it diversifies the link building and profile rather then just building high quality guest posts. As just building one link type can leave a footprint. What are your thoughts on this? Cheers.0 -
Best practice to redirect http to https
I have an SSL certificate on our domain but at times some search results still list the HTTP version. Clicking on this then warns the user about security and they leave. To avoid this I am using this in the htaccess file to redirect all HTTP visits to the https version. RewriteEngine On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gavpeds
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://domain.com/$1 [R,L] Is this ok? I notice on Moz toolbar it give a 302 temporary redirect I am thinking this isn't good and needs to be a 301 maybe? What is the best practice in this situation?1 -
Internal Anchor Text Links
Hi How important are internal anchor text links & rankings? I'm researching competitors and am seeing a lot of internal anchor text links with keywords helping them rank - but they have these links in their menu which at the moment isn't possible for us. We can include our top level 1 categories, but nothing below this in the top navigation Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Internal Linking
Hi I've been looking over my pages and it says for this page for example http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/1-6kw-halogen-heater I have too many links, I think it was about 178. These links are from the menu and bottom of the page - how much of an issue is this for internal linking structure? I wouldn't want to remove the menus or change them too much. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
ECommerce website with link to manufactures site for ordering - Should these links be follow or no follow?
Dear Mozzers, I have a couple of questions regarding link juice and whether I should have do follow or no follow links ? We have an affiliate eCommerce website and on our product pages we have a "Order online " button which will go our subdomain on the manufactures site in order for the user to complete the online ordering process So it's - www.ourcompany.co.uk - "Order Online Button" - www.manufactuer.ourcompany.co.uk Should this " Order online Button" be a Follow or No Follow link ? I ask this as currently from looking at Majestic seo , these "order online " buttons on my product pages seems to be Follow links so am I losing potential link juice by sending it externally ? Am I correct in assuming by changing it to be no follows, I would increase the link juice going elsewhere internally? thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Duplicate internal links on page, any benefit to nofollow
Link spam is naturally a hot topic amongst SEO's, particularly post Penguin. While digging around forums etc, I watched a video blog from Matt Cutts posted a while ago that suggests that Google only pays attention to the first instance of a link on the page As most websites will have multiple instances of a links (header, footer and body text), is it beneficial to nofollow the additional instances of the link? Also as the first instance of a link will in most cases be within the header nav, does that then make the content link text critical or can good on page optimisation be pulled from the title attribute? I would appreciate the experiences and thoughts Mozzers thoughts on this thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JustinTaylor880