Internal Linking: Site-wide VS Content Links
-
I just watched this video in which Matt Cutts talks about the ancient 100 links per page limit.
I often encounter websites which have massive navigation (elaborate main menu, side bar, footer, superfooter...etc) in addition to content area based links.
My question is do you think Google passes votes (PageRank and anchor text) differently from template links such as navigation to the ones in the content area, if so have you done any testing to confirm?
-
He also said: "We invite and strongly encourage readers to test these themselves."
This is what I am after, personal opinion from people who have either tested or experienced the effect first hand.
-
it is a thought that there is an importance if the links apear at the begining of body or at end and if they are in specific tags. How do you specify to crawler that a speciffic link is from a navbar and that link has an bigger value than other content links?
-
Rand has written a blog about this a while ago, how not all links on webpages are created equal, you might find it interesting:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links
-
Thanks for your input!
It seems like your vote goes towards all links being treated equally regardless of their location/function. Interesting... I have suspicion that there is or should be difference. Why?
Consider this, Google notices 150 sitewide links that always appear. Wouldn't it make sense for Google to treat page-specific links differently to sitewide ones as that would in fact improve their ranking system (e.g. 150 standard links not diluting the importance of a page specific link given through content).
Thoughts?
-
Many of this massive navigation are made in flash, javascript, and google can't see them as links, then it conts them as 1 link or as refference to javascript file and nothing else, that's how its done to have massive links but not seen by google or you can set nofollow to non preffered links then google will analyze different your page. And the answer is No, Links are Links everywhere only difference is the tag that link contains, and you can test this with tools like spider view try one on 2 pages and you'll se that there is no difference
Best,
Ion
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
-
Treatment of domain names in content that are not actually a link
From PR activity we've found that lots of newspaper sites will include reference to a domain name in an article but not actually make this a link through to the domain. For example we will see text like: For further information read the full report at www.bluewidget.com Of course we make attempts to contact the newspaper to request they make it a link but this doesn't always achieve a result. So the question is, does Google place any value for the identified domain in a case like this?
Technical SEO | | bjalc20110 -
Do quizzes hurt your site? Thin content?
We did a 10 question quiz awhile back relating to something we were sponsoring, and it had a decent response. However, considering quizzes just aren't that long, does that contribute to making the site's content thin? Obviously, it's not a major problem at the moment, but if we did more of them would this be an issue? If there's no real issue, I'd prefer not to no-index them, but I'd love some feedback to help make the decision. Thanks, Ruben
Technical SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Paid links that are passing link equity from a blog?
We have a well-known blogger in our industry with whom we've had a long-standing relationship. We've had inbound links from his blog for many, many years. Today I noticed that we are running a banner ad listed on all pages of his blog under a heading that says "Sponsors." He has dedicated an entire page of his site giving full disclosure of all advertising. However, all of the links on his site pointing to us are passing link equity. To my knowledge they've been this way ever since they were first established years ago. I am fairly certain this fellow, with whom we have an excellent relationship, neither knows nor cares what a "nofollow" attribute is. I am afraid that if I contact him with a request that he add "nofollow" attributes to all of our links that it will damage our relationship by creating friction. To someone who knows nothing and cares nothing about SEO, asking them to put a "nofollow" on a link could either seem like a technical request they don't know how to handle, or something even potentially "shady" on our part. My question is this: Considering how long these links have been there, is this even worth worrying about? Should I just forget about it and move on to bigger fish, or, is this a potentially serious enough violation of Google Webmaster guidelines that we should pursue getting those links "nofollow" attributes added? I should add that we haven't received any "unnatural" link notifications from Google, ever, and haven't ever engaged in any questionable link-building tactics.
Technical SEO | | danatanseo1 -
Correct linking to the /index of a site and subfolders: what's the best practice? link to: domain.com/ or domain.com/index.html ?
Dear all, starting with my .htaccess file: RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | inlinear
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.inlinear.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://inlinear.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://inlinear.com/ [R=301,L] 1. I redirect all URL-requests with www. to the non www-version...
2. all requests with "index.html" will be redirected to "domain.com/" My questions are: A) When linking from a page to my frontpage (home) the best practice is?: "http://domain.com/" the best and NOT: "http://domain.com/index.php" B) When linking to the index of a subfolder "http://domain.com/products/index.php" I should link also to: "http://domain.com/products/" and not put also the index.php..., right? C) When I define the canonical ULR, should I also define it just: "http://domain.com/products/" or in this case I should link to the definite file: "http://domain.com/products**/index.php**" Is A) B) the best practice? and C) ? Thanks for all replies! 🙂
Holger0 -
Modx revolution- getting around index.php vs. root duplicate content issue?
Basically, SEOMoz bots are flagging our index.php and root files as duplicate content of one another, therefore cutting the page authority of each. What we want to do is make the root the canonical preference over index.php. Ordinarily, we should be able to do this in the htaccess file. For some reason, as the site has been built into a cms using ModX Revolution, this does not seem to work. We've tried A TON of htaccess rewrite mods to resolve this issue to no avail. We have also tried revising our sitemap to include only the root address. Any ideas? We'll try most anything at this point. Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | G2W0 -
Mest method of creating internal links
I am curious, what is the best way to link things from an SEO perspective 1. Full Path; http://yoursite.com/links/alink/ 2. Absolute Path /links/yourlink/ 3. Relative Path ../yourlink/ Just curious if there has been any quantifiable data on this. Thanks Zach
Technical SEO | | Zachary_Russell0 -
Internal Links on eCommerce sites
I have been working on an eCommerce site; www.pretavoir.co.uk over the past year. Improvements in SERPs have been good with many top three positions. However, there are other important keywords of similar difficulty which refuse to behave in a similar way.... The site is PR4 and has a homepage PA 52. The homepage includes links to internal brand pages eg Prada, Gucci etc. Q Would it be worthwhile creating footer anchor text with eaxct text eg Prada sunglasses, Gucci Sunglasses?? Thanks
Technical SEO | | seanmccauley0 -
Absolute and relative paths for internal links
I have been looking into absolute and relative paths for internal links, what is better for SEO? Thanks
Technical SEO | | adaptiveconsultancy0