Too many On-Page Links on a WP based Website
-
Hi,
I've already browsed through various of the Q&As on the "too many On-Page links" issue, but I would really need some advice concerning a WP Site with a dropdown navigation.
As outlined in the on-page report, every site has about 180 outgoing links, which pretty much is the number of site featured in the navigation. Even though the 100 link limit is somewhat outdated I'm still worried about the distribution of linkjuice from the starting page and how Google perceives the importance of the various pages.
Would it make sense to adapt the structure of the navigation, so that the starting page only links to the 5 category pages and the category pages only link to the detail pages they contain?
The site has good rankings for several pages and I assume that Google can tell that the large number of links is caused by the navigation. But with every page having appr. 180 links it may be difficult for Google to tell, which of those pages are the most important regarding internal link structure...
Looking foward to your opinion and insights!
Cheers,
Chris
-
If you decide you absolutely must use tags I recommend creating or buying a wordpress theme that only shows post excerpts on the tag pages. That should help with duplicate content.
Categories in WordPress are better for SEO b/c wordpress stores a description for categories and SEO plugins can grab this descrption and add it to the meta descrption tag in your posts HTML header.
-
No probs you too
-
Hi Craig,
that's exactly what I was thinking about, having 5 hub/category pages with the relvant pages in them. makes perfect sense
Thanks for the advice concerning the tags, I'll have a look at it!
Have a nice weekend!
Cheers,
Chris -
I see
I don't really think it's a massive problem but to improve it why dont you take out the drop downs so rather then everything being one click away its 2 clicks
For example turn the parent pages into hubs of that category and this will cut down total number of links on pages across the site.
I hope that made sense
Also I noticed your using tags, I advise against these but if your going to use them you should noindex, follow these pages I checked a few and they were indexed.
This of course can cause duplicate content issues.
-
Hi Craig,
thanks for the quick reply!
I see your point in putting Usability before SEO-related concerns
The site has thematically clear structure and pages are grouped into meaningful categories. The thing I am concerned about is the structure of the navigation itself.
For Example: Given the current Navigation, if you're on any detail page, you can select any other category pages or detail pages from other categories, thats why there are so many Links per Page. Of course, this is very convenient, as you can navigate from a 3rd level page of Category A to any other page in just one click.
The question now is, whether this type of navigation has a disadvantage in terms of On-Page Optimization, or if it doesn't really matter as Google can tell that the high number of links on every site is simply caused by the navigation.
I forgot to post the link, by the way: http:www.hlm.at/
-
Hey Christoph,
I think you should be more concerned by your users navigating the site rather than Google. I don't think it's really that important on the amount of link but rather the type of link and where they are on your site.
If I were you I would work on your site architecture and create a better navigation for your users and an organised site will of course be crawled better.
Also organising your site into a few categories will help the engines to sort and better understand your site and it's content but don't go over board and remember categories are a tool to help you organise your site, so pages shouldn't really need multiple categories.
Hope this helps
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
-
Shifting target keyword to a new page, how do we rank the internal page?
I have been targeting one keyword for home page that was ranking between the postilion 6-7 but was never ranking on 1st as there were 2 highly competitive keywords targeted on the same page, I changed the keyword to an internal service page to rank it on 1st, I have optimized the content as well but the home page is still ranking on 11th, how do I get the internal page rank on that keyword
On-Page Optimization | | GOMO-Gabriel0 -
What to do to index all my links of my website?
Ok, i have a new website, with only 14.000 page indexed by google, but the potential is big, 1-2 million pages. What i have to do, to force somehow google to index my website faster? This is my website: https://vmag.ro/
On-Page Optimization | | TeodorMarin0 -
When making content pages to a specific page; should you index it straight away in GSC or let Google crawl it naturally?
When making content pages to a specific page; should you index it straight away in GSC or let Google crawl it naturally?
On-Page Optimization | | Jacksons_Fencing0 -
Impact of multiple links on the same page to the same url (different anchor text) ?
Hi, On our category pages, for every product we have several links pointing to the product : on the image, on the product name, on the short description, on "read more", and a javascript onclick on the entire div. Could this have a negative impact for link juice distribution, or is it counted as only 1 link with the first anchor text found on the page ? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | Strelok0 -
Sold Products appear as duplicate pages 'Page Not Found' ???
Hi there, I'm down to just 6 duplicate page warnings but I'm not sure how to deal with this one: Information Page Not Found! http://www.vintageheirloom.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=6 My Ecommerce shopping site products are unique, 1 of a kind. So once one product has sold and been delivered we take the product off our website, hence the Information Page Not Found! As I understand when search engines re-index these warnings will drop off but new sold products would replace them. So redirecting seems like hard work and never ending. Is it ok to ignore these warnings? Thanks Mozzers..
On-Page Optimization | | well-its-1-louder0 -
The "100 links/page recommendation" - Do Duplicate Links Count?
We have way too many links on our homepage. The PageRank Link Juice Calculator (www.ecreativeim.com/pagerank-link-juice-calculator.php) counts them to 300. But all of them are not unique, that is some links point to the same URL. So my question: does the "100 links/page recommendation" refer to all anchors on the page or only to unique link target URLs? I know "100" is just a standard recommendation.
On-Page Optimization | | TalkInThePark0 -
Duplicate page
Just getting started and had a question regarding one of the reports. It is telling me that I have duplicate pages but I'm not sure how to resolve that.
On-Page Optimization | | KeylimeSocial0 -
How many urls per page is to many
I know it used to be 100 urls per page, but recently Matt cutts has said that they can count a lot more now. I was wonder what you guys thought was how many was to many per page?
On-Page Optimization | | Gordian0