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
-
URL Re-Mapping Question ?. Do I need to the theme of my business in my url struture even though GWT knows what my site is about
Hi All, I have currently planning to do some url remapping on my Hire Website as alot of most important pages are far to many levels deep from the root domain. This is also making my sitemap not tidy etc. In GWT, Google knows that the theme is my website is Hire as it's the top word. Therefore do I still need to use the word hire in all my new url categories / structures or not ? Examples http://goo.gl/BFmvk2 I was thinking of remapping to www.xxxxxxx.xco.uk/tool-hire-birmingham http://goo.gl/pC9Bdp I was thinking of remapping to www.xxxxxx.co.uk/cleaning-equipment Notice in the later example , I do not have the word rent in the url. Any advice is much appreciated thanks peter
Web Design | | PeteC120 -
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 -
Nofollow links to resources used to save bandwidth?
I have a site on volusion, www.ecowindchimes.com. Until recently I was doing fairly well (top 3 for keyword(s) for 6 years) in serps. I was hit by the an update around july of last year, and did a full page redesign in november. My site has been losing ranking for its main keyword "wind chimes".
Web Design | | sbetzen
One change I noticed is that no-follow was removed (when the designers added a lightbox popup for the sound) from the many many links I have for my sound files of the wind chimes (I house them on a separate server to save bandwidth, which is expensive at volusion). The webaddress the sound-files are on doesn't even have a page... it is just there for the files. (there are ~100 files linked to on almost every page of the site where a product listing shows). Should I go through and no-follow all of these links again? Is that hurting me?
I suspect it is, but it is a lot of work for nothing if that is not the problem.0 -
PHP Framework Question! Zend, CakePHP, Symfony, CodeIgniter. Finally I get to ask something.
Hey ya'll! We are looking to re-build our backoffice website. It's a dynamically generated site that pulls information from a DB. The DB is populated by the quote form. The DB contains the customers' info, shipping, email templates, and everything to process orders. The backoffice website is custom made in JAVA, but the owner is not happy with the programmer. I told the owner we may want to go to a PHP Framework. My question is which PHP framework would you recommend and why? Zend CakePHP Symfony CodeIgniter
Web Design | | Francisco_Meza0 -
Footer Links Good or bad?
Hi Can anyone answer this question confidently, I know Google is moving away from lots of links within the footer. However we specialise in websites for the travel industry and having a link to all the areas at the footer can be quite handy. Our websites complete this automatically. Here is an example where due to design of the site the links don't quite fit well, so we need to change anyway. But before completing the work I wondered if there was a better way to do this. http://www.dreamvillasitaly.com/ Many thanks Andy
Web Design | | iprosoftware0 -
Technical SEO Question about TLD combined with SubDomain
I am making a new website but need to figure out the best way to do this in terms of SEO. I would like the website to have functionality of brochure website combined with an online store. My issue is that I will be using software called prestashop for my online store and CMS called MODx to develop my brochure site. (These can not be combined into one CMS). I can create brochure site with MOdx = www.example.com & then from that a subdomain using prestashop for my online store = store.example.com Can I get Google to index these as one site or would I be better off trying to get everything under the TLD. Ideally I would like just one site without subdomain Bacially what I am asking is... What are the effects of having subdomains in terms of SEO? Am I better of having everyhitng under TLD? Can I get Google to view TLD and Sub as one site? Hope this makes sense, thank you.
Web Design | | Socialdude0 -
Keyword rich footer links negative effect
Based on bits and pieces of information I've read on SEOmoz, am I correct to state that:
Web Design | | Partouter
"Keyword-rich footer links effect pages negatively in terms of the keyword referenced in the anchor text?" This means footer links in Thanks in advance fellow Mozzers!0 -
How does the "first link" rule work with the "reasonable surfer patent" when it comes to the main navigation for a website?
In trying to figure out navigation for a new website, I am struggling with the first link rule vs. the reasonable surfer patent where the first link rule implies that Google "counts" the first link to a page including navigation, and the reasonable surfer patent that implies that navigation links carry less weight than body copy links. What is the best solution for creating main navigation so that it doesn't take away from the body copy links?
Web Design | | cindyt-170380