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.
HTML5 Nav Tag Issue - Be Aware
-
In checking my internal links with GWT, it is apparent that links within the nav tag in HTML5 are discounted by Google as "internal links"
This could have major repercussions for designing your internal link structure for SEO purposes.
I was surprised to see this result, as I have never seen it discussed.
Anyone else notice this, or have any alternative views?
-
Two weeks is pretty short time for a new site to get accurate reports from GWT. The back links I found weren't valuable - none with a page authority over 1.
I would secure at least one high quality link and wait a few more weeks.
-
Appears I broke the site... sorry
-
_Could we see the site? _
How long ago did you post the nav element?
The nav bar at top of page has been there since the site went live about two weeks ago. My GWT show only 7 internal links to my home page, but there are 15 pages published
-
Here is how one could test this to be sure:
- Create site on a throw away domain that includes:
- home page
- sub page (containing unique text in title and body)
- orphaned sub page
- Place the nav tag on all pages with links to only the first two pages.
- Add some dummy content but don't create any other links.
- Link to the orphaned page from a decently trusted and ranked page on another site.
- Wait 2-4 weeks.
- Search for the unique string and write a YouMOZ post about your findings.
-
While I have found it does, you could always use a logo link to accomplish this.
-
To be sure I understand; you have a site-wide header ,
<nav>section but you are not seeing the backlinks from all the pages in the GWT internal links report?
(Incidentally, my experience has shown these links do count.)
Could we see the site?
How long ago did you post the nav element?
</nav>
-
To be clear, I believe it is good SEO practice to ensure that every page of a website contains a link to the Home Page (and other key landing pages as befits the site).
Putting a link to the home page WITHIN a nav tag in HTML5 does not accomplish this goal.
-
"I presume your issue is you have external links inside a
<nav>container?"
No - that is not my issue. I have 5 "landing pages" (Home and 2nd tier pages) included in the main nav bar include below my site logo on every page.
I had assumed (incorrectly) that those pages would be internally linked to every page of the website - but they are NOT (at least as far as the internal links shown on GWT)
</nav>
-
This seems reasonable and a good way to ensure the link is allocated correctly.
I presume your issue is you have external links inside a
<nav>container?
Follow up: it appears the specifications do suggest the nav element is for internal links - the element is primarily intended for sections that consist of major navigation blocks. External links are generally not considered major navigation, no?
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/sections.html#the-nav-element
</nav>
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
-
Is it best practice to have a canonical tags on all pages
The website I'm working on has no canonical tags. There is duplicate content so rel=canonicals need adding to certain pages but is it best practice to have a tag on every page ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColesNathan0 -
H2 Tags- Can you have more than 1 H2 tag
Hi All, Screaming frog has identified that we have a few H2 tags on our pages , although we only have 1 H1 tag. We have numerous H3,H4's etc. I am wondering, is it good SEO to have only 1 H2 tag like with H1 tag or can you have more ? thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Duplicate Title tags even with rel=canonical
Hello, We were having duplicate content in our blog (a replica of each post automatically was done by the CMS), until we recently implemented a rel=canonical tag to all the duplicate posts (some 5 weeks ago). So far, no duplicate content were been found, but we are still getting duplicate title tags, though the rel=canonical is present. Any idea why is this the case and what can we do to solve it? Thanks in advance for your help. Tej Luchmun
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | luxresorts0 -
Noindex : Do Follow or No Follow Tags?
Hello, I have a website with tags (which have the noindex tag) on each article post. I've been told that I should noindex/nofollow these tag pages, because they are getting link juice passed to them, and since they aren't getting indexed, it's wasting link juice to those pages, when the link juice could be passed to a page that is actually getting indexed. What are your thoughts on this? Also, what would be the point to noindex/follow a page, if you are noindexing that page? Isn't it just wasting link juice? What is the proper SEO way to optimize tags.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Should I remove Meta Keywords tags?
Hi, Do you recommend removing Meta Keywords or is there "nothing to lose" with having them? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Rel=canonical tag on original page?
Afternoon All,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jellyfish-Agency
We are using Concrete5 as our CMS system, we are due to change but for the moment we have to play with what we have got. Part of the C5 system allows us to attribute our main page into other categories, via a page alaiser add-on. But what it also does is create several url paths and duplicate pages depending on how many times we take the original page and reference it in other categories. We have tried C5 canonical/SEO add-on's but they all seem to fall short. We have tried to address this issue in the most efficient way possible by using the rel=canonical tag. The only issue is the limitations of our cms system. We add the canonical tag to the original page header and this will automatically place this tag on all the duplicate pages and in turn fix the problem of duplicate content. The only problem is the canonical tag is on the original page as well, but it is referencing itself, effectively creating a tagging circle. Does anyone foresee a problem with the canonical tag being on the original page but in turn referencing itself? What we have done is try to simplify our duplicate content issues. We have over 2500 duplicate page issues because of this aliasing add-on and want to automate the canonical tag addition, rather than go to each individual page and manually add this tag, so the original reference page can remain the original. We have implemented this tag on one page at the moment with 9 duplicate pages/url's and are monitoring, but was curious if people had experienced this before or had any thoughts?0 -
Canonical Tag and Affiliate Links
Hi! I am not very familiar with the canonical tag. The thing is that we are getting traffic and links from affiliates. The affiliates links add something like this to the code of our URL: www.mydomain.com/category/product-page?afl=XXXXXX At this moment we have almost 2,000 pages indexed with that code at the end of the URL. So they are all duplicated. My other concern is that I don't know if those affilate links are giving us some link juice or not. I mean, if an original product page has 30 links and the affiliates copies have 15 more... are all those links being counted together by Google? Or are we losing all the juice from the affiliates? Can I fix all this with the canonical tag? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jorgediaz0 -
Why should your title and H1 tag be different?
Is it dangerous to have your H1 tag and your title the exact same thing? My thought was that it's not be the best use of space, but that it couldn't cause harm. What do you think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarieHaynes7