Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Prevent link juice to flow on low-value pages
-
Hello there!
Most of the websites have links to low-value pages in their main navigation (header or footer)... thus, available through every other pages.
I especially think about "Conditions of Use" or "Privacy Notice" pages, which have no value for SEO.
What I would like, is to prevent link juice to flow into those pages... but still keep the links for visitors. What is the best way to achieve this?
- Put a rel="nofollow" attribute on those links?
- Put a "robots" meta tag containing "noindex,nofollow" on those pages?
- Put a "Disallow" for those pages in a "robots.txt" file?
- Use efficient Javascript links? (that crawlers won't be able to follow)
-
Mmh, good point. Never heard that "privacy policy page" could be a trust signal. Is there an article somewhere that talks about this?
Well, I took those two pages as an example... but my question was about avoiding link juice to flow on non-SEO pages in general.
Thanks a lot for your answers!
-
Exactly, and what I also try to explain to people is that privacy policy type page is additional signal for Google when they try to understand the type of site you are and how trustworthy it is. Why in the world would you noindex something like that?
-
As I understand it nofollow still dilutes your link juice even though it does not pass PR (theoretically).
Google made this announcement to combat PR sculpting in 2009. Here is a post from Rand about it.
Unlsee something has changed that I am not aware of you could link in an iFrame and Google will not see it, nor will it dilute your PR passed out.
-
Great suggestions. I've recently combined some pages (login/register, about/contact/ToS/privacy, and a few others) and have been very happy with the results. I removed 8 links from every page.
I am also thinking about removing some more links from my product pages, to try and keep the most juice on those pages. Those pages don't need the same navigation as the homepage.
-
It depends on what your purpose is.
If you want them totally block from being index then putting the page in the robots.tx fil or using a robots meta tag would work fine.
If you just want to de-emphasize the page to the search engines you can use nofollows or javascript links on footer/header links.
One thing that we have done is to combine some of these pages (terms and privacy) into one page to cut down on the number of total links on each page.
You could also not include the privacy page link on every page (depending on your site) but just link it from certain pages that collect sensitive data (near the form).
I hope this helps. The main thing to remember is that each site is different so you will have to adjust your tactics depending on precisely what you are trying to accomplish.
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
-
Will it upset Google if I aggregate product page reviews up into a product category page?
We have reviews on our product pages and we are considering averaging those reviews out and putting them on specific category pages in order for the average product ratings to be displayed in search results. Each averaged category review would be only for the products within it's category, and all reviews are from users of the site, no 3rd party reviews. For example, averaging the reviews from all of our boxes products pages, and listing that average review on the boxes category page. My question is, will this be doing anything wrong in the eyes of Google, and if so how so? -Derick
On-Page Optimization | Sep 30, 2016, 8:28 PM | Deluxe0 -
Link flow for multiple links to same URL
Hi there,
On-Page Optimization | Mar 31, 2016, 6:06 AM | doctecs
my question is as follows: How does Google handle link flow if two links in a given page point to the same URL? (do they flow link individually or not?) This seems to be a newbie question, but actually it seems that there is little evidence and even also little consensus in the SEO community about this detail. Answers should include source Information about the current state of art at Google is preferable The question is not about anchor text, general best practises for linking, "PageRank is dead" etc. We do know that the "historical" PageRank was implemented (a long time ago) without special handling for multiple links, as e.g. last stated by Matt Cutts in this video: http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-one-page-two-links-page-counted-first-link-192718 On the other hand, many people from the SEO community say that only the first link counts. But so far I could not find any data to back this up, which is quite surprising.0 -
Should I optimize my home-page or a sub-page for my most important keyword
Quick question: When choosing the most important keyword set that I would like to rank for, would I be better off optimizing my homepage, or a sub page for this keyword. My thinking goes as follows: The homepage (IE www.mysite.com) naturally has more backlinks and thus a better Google Page Rank. However, there are certain things I could do to a subpage (IE www.mysite.com/green-widgets-los-angeles ) that I wouldn't want to do to the homepage, which might be more "optimal" overall. Option C, I suppose, would be to optimize both the homepage, and a single sub-page, which is seeming like a pretty good solution, but I have been told that having multiple pages optimized for the same keywords might "confuse" search engines. Would love any insight on this!
On-Page Optimization | Mar 2, 2016, 1:46 PM | Jacob_A2 -
Listing all services on one page vs separate pages per service
My company offers several generalized categories with more specific services underneath each category. Currently the way it's structured is if you click "Voice" you get a full description of each voice service we offer. I have a feeling this is shooting us in the foot. Would it be better to have a general overview of the services we offer on the "Voice" page that then links to the specified service? The blurb about the service on the overview page would be unique, not taken from the actual specific service's page.
On-Page Optimization | Jan 9, 2015, 1:39 AM | AMATechTel0 -
What is on page links?
Hi - i would like to know exactly what an on page link is? i understand the linking system however cant work what exactly what an on page link is? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | Feb 6, 2013, 8:19 AM | OasisLandDevelopment0 -
Missing meta descriptions on indexed pages, portfolio, tags, author and archive pages. I am using SEO all in one, any advice?
I am having a few problems that I can't seem to work out.....I am fairly new to this and can't seem to work out the following: Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 1. I am missing alot of meta description tags. I have installed "All in One SEO" but there seems to be no options to add meta descriptions in portfolio posts. I have also written meta descriptions for 'tags' and whilst I can see them in WP they don't seem to be activated. 2. The blog has pages indexed by WP- called Part 2 (/page/2), Part 3 (/page/3) etc. How do I solve this issue of meta descriptions and indexed pages? 3. There is also a page for myself, the author, that has multiple indexes for all the blog posts I have written, and I can't edit these archives to add meta descriptions. This also applies to the month archives for the blog. 4. Also, SEOmoz tells me that I have too many links on my blog page (also indexed) and their consequent tags. This also applies to the author pages (myself ). How do I fix this? Thanks for your help 🙂 Regards Nadia
On-Page Optimization | Feb 28, 2012, 7:46 PM | PHDAustralia680 -
Is there a SEO penalty for multi links on same page going to same destination page?
Hi, Just a quick note. I hope you are able to assist. To cut a long story short, on the page below http://www.bookbluemountains.com.au/ -> Features Specials & Packages (middle column) we have 3 links per special going to the same page.
On-Page Optimization | Oct 8, 2011, 4:21 AM | daveupton
1. Header is linked
2. Click on image link - currently with a no follow
3. 'More info' under the description paragraph is linked too - currently with a no follow Two arguments are as follows:
1. The reason we do not follow all 3 links is to reduce too many links which may appear spammy to Google. 2. Counter argument:
The point above has some validity, However, using no follow is basically telling the search engines that the webmaster “does not trust or doesn’t take responsibility” for what is behind the link, something you don’t want to do within your own website. There is no penalty as such for having too many links, the search engines will generally not worry after a certain number.. nothing that would concern this business though. I would suggest changing the no follow links a.s.a.p. Could you please advise thoughts. Many thanks Dave Upton [long signature removed by staff]0 -
E-Commerce product pages that have multiple skus with unique pages.
Hey Guys, With the recent farm/panda update from google i'm at a cross roads as to how I should optimize product pages for a project i'm working on for a client. My client sells tires and one particular tire brand can have up to 15 models and each model can have up to 30 sizes. IE: 'Michelin Pilot Sport Cup' comes in 15 different sizes. Each size will have it's unique product page and description bringing me to my question. Should I use the same description on every size? I do plan on writting unique content for each tire model however i'm not sure if I should do it for every size. After all the tire model description is the same for every size, each size doesn't carry any unique characteristics that I can describe. Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | Aug 29, 2011, 3:05 PM | MikeDelaCruz770