Internal links question
-
I've read that Google frowns upon large numbers of internal links.
We're building a site that helps users browse a list of shows via dozens of genres. If the genres are expose, say, as a pulldown menu as opposed to a list of static links, and selecting the pulldown option filters the list of shows, would those genres count against our internal links count?
-
There were two initial reasons for the 100 link "rule."
1. Google's crawl budget was limited
2. Each page has a given amount of authority it is able to pass on to internal pages. Less links means more authority for each link.
The first part is out the door now. Google has plenty of crawl budget for most sites, and will give plenty if your huge website has enough authority.
So, the problem that you need to evaluate is if you are spreading your authority too thinly across all of these pages. Would you be better off limiting it to certain categories, or are you going to be a rock star at link building, and don't need to care?
After you consider that you will want to consider your users. Are you giving them too many options, and causing choice overload? Test different options, and see what performs better. There is a Ted talk about Choice Overload that used jelly as an example. One test had over 20 jellies to choose from, and one had around 6. At the end of the day people were more likely to actually buy the jelly when there were only 6 options. What the study determined was that having too many choices overwhelmed shoppers, and led to less sales.
Moral of the story, don't give people too much jelly.
-
Depends on what you are trying to do. If you have very little content, but a lot of links then they may frown upon it, frowning meaning take action against your site.
If you just have a large menu with a lot of links, and frequently link to other pages then I doubt it will be counted against you.
I understand trying to abide by Google guidelines, but it's much easier to simply look at your paqge and say "Does this make sense?" Am I trying to add links to manipulate search engine rankings, or am I trying to help users find helpful/relevant/related information? Once you look at it from that standpoint, it becomes easier to see where you have problem areas.
Since you are doing a genre based site, think of how you can organize your URL and menu structure, to make your articles easier to find, and link to. (I would imagine you want people to share your content, right?)
As long as your pulldown menus are linking to individual articles, even if the link count is high I dount think you will run into any issues.
-
Google has dropped the 100 links per page rule;
However, you only want to show links that are useful to the user. Look at your data and create an intuitive, easy to use navigation system and intra-linking architecture.
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
-
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 -
Does adding more outgoing links on a high PA page decrease the juice passed to previous links?
Hi, I'm not sure how PA DA exactly works when the goal is to create backlinks to your site in order to have the most impact on passing PA DA juice (if there is such a thing) to ones money site. For example let's say you have a blog and the PA is 40 DA is 30. Let's say I create a backlink pointing to my site on the homepage of this blog, in which I desire better rankings for, and the links I created are only 1-3 outgoing links on this post which is again on the homepage. Then say in a months time, I want to add another post on the homepage (so the 40 PA and 30 DA stays the same) creating a backlink to one of my other money sites. Does adding this second round of backlinks result in sending less juice to the first? This is what I want to know. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | z8YX9F800 -
Pop up question and link flow?
Does a pop up like the one on this site www stressfreeprint co uk (top left corner about us, who we are) count as an external link or would link juice not flow to it. I like to have a few pages that i don't want to waste link juice on but would still like to have them and hope this is the answer.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Are footer links important?
We currently display a list of links in the footer of our site to help boost SEO. They were put in place years ago and in a recent discuss with our UX team they requested we remove them from the site. Do footer links have any value? Or is this an old dated practice that no longer works? If we remove the footer links should we expect to see if have an impact on our SEO traffic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mivito0 -
Link Building
We have just recently launched a new website in Australia and as l am new to the SEO community, l was looking for a little advice on link building. Where is best to start? There are not many authorative websites for our industry. Are there specific websites that are good to link to? Are there any good tools to assist with this? Any help would be great. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobSchofield0 -
Link Building Question
Hey Moz'ers, I have created several blogs on different domains for the purpose of writing good content articles that contain 2-3 links per article that go back to my website. It has been up for about 3-4 weeks. I am not seeing my results/links showing up in OSE, is this because it still needs more time or is there something else I could be advised to look into? In theory these blogs will only contain 2-3 links from each domain to the site. I was also going to make sure the anchor text per link is different (keyword, brand name, random anchor like click here). Side note: How does this system sound as part of one small aspect to link building? red flags? Thanks for all the responses and advice.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MonsterWeb280 -
Question about copying content
Hi there, I have had a question from a retailer asking if they can take all our content i.e. blog articles, product pages etc, what is best practice here in getting SEO value out of this? Here a few ideas I was thinking of: I was thinking they put canonical tags on all pages where they have copied our content? They copy the content but leave all anchor text in place? Please let me know your thoughts. Kind Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
Looking for a link builder
Hey guys I'm looking for a freelance link builder to work with my agency. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks Jaime
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | flemingsteele0