undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • SEO Q&A

      Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. On-Page Optimization
  4. External vs inline for CSS menu

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.

External vs inline for CSS menu

On-Page Optimization
3
5
1.9k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • teatable
    teatable last edited by Jun 29, 2011, 11:56 AM

    Which is better for search engines: external or inline menus? And which language: CSS, Javascript, or both?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • teatable
      teatable @teatable last edited by Jun 29, 2011, 3:15 PM Jun 29, 2011, 3:15 PM

      Thanks, Steve.  That makes sense.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • SteveOllington
        SteveOllington @teatable last edited by Jun 29, 2011, 2:45 PM Jun 29, 2011, 2:44 PM

        Even though inline uses less code than usual, I'd still say always go for an external file so there is less code to crawl though for your content. The cleaner the code, the better. Inline is still more code than just a linked external stylesheet.

        *Edit: Oh and CSS every time over JavaScript 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • teatable
          teatable @Theo-NL last edited by Jun 29, 2011, 12:31 PM Jun 29, 2011, 12:31 PM

          Thanks for the quick reply.  I guess I should have specified an external CSS file that contains the menu coding, vs. inline CSS coding.  From an SEO/crawl bot perspective, should the CSS menu coding be in an external file or inline?

          SteveOllington teatable 2 Replies Last reply Jun 29, 2011, 3:15 PM Reply Quote 0
          • Theo-NL
            Theo-NL last edited by Jun 29, 2011, 12:14 PM Jun 29, 2011, 12:13 PM

            What exactly is an 'external' or 'internal' menu? Every menu that is on your website is internal by definition that it is 'on your website'?

            Menus should be fully accessible with Javascript turned off. With that in mind you could add Javascript to make the menu function better for users that have Javascript enabled.

            teatable 1 Reply Last reply Jun 29, 2011, 12:31 PM Reply Quote 0
            • 1 / 1
            1 out of 5
            • First post
              1/5
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • DigitalProgress

              Hamburger Menu on Desktop Version - Affect SEO?

              hamburger desktop nav menu seo rankings seo

              Hi There We are working with developers of a site redesign of an existing site. They are keen on a hamburger menu on the desktop, as well as mobile. Can I confirm if this will have any implications for the SEO rankings? Many thanks in advance for assistance

              On-Page Optimization | Apr 19, 2022, 10:28 AM | DigitalProgress
              0
            • Sammyh

              Do you need to include the top menu on every single page of the site in the code?

              When using     cache:     on google, and clicking on Text-only version, our site has the top menu gibberish on top? My feeling is that this take away SEO juice from our title and focus keyword. Our website is culinarydepotinc.com

              On-Page Optimization | Jun 21, 2018, 8:40 PM | Sammyh
              1
            • KathleenDC

              301 vs 410

              Hello everyone! I'm going through a large list of old 404 links that search console has given me and a lot of these links need to be 301'd. My question is, should I 410 some of these links if I can't find a good place to 301 to? Or is there another thing I should do that is better practice. Thanks!

              On-Page Optimization | Sep 2, 2016, 10:47 AM | KathleenDC
              0
            • Uinterview

              Linking to External Site In Nav Bar

              Hi, we are a celebrity site but also own a separate sports site with its own URL. We have a link to that site in our Nav bar. Are we being penalized by having that link? thanks

              On-Page Optimization | Jun 22, 2015, 6:53 PM | Uinterview
              0
            • Eslam-yosef

              1500 words per post * 10 posts vs 15000 words in one article, which is best for SEO?

              If you don't have any problems with Text/HTML ratio. Which one do you prefer for better results? With reasons of possible, thanks.

              On-Page Optimization | Apr 3, 2015, 5:40 PM | Eslam-yosef
              0
            • dhanson24

              H2's vs Meta description

              in some of my serp results the h2's are showing up instead of the meta description. i have read that H2's arent really valid anymore. can someone clarify this for me?

              On-Page Optimization | Sep 5, 2013, 2:42 PM | dhanson24
              0
            • AdamThompson

              Internal Linking - in content vs navigation menu

              Would like to get some thoughts on whether navigation menus or in-content links are best for internal linking, from an SEO standpoint. A few thoughts to get started with: For sites with a lot of content, you can have a navigation menu linking to your higher-level pages, then in-content links to deeper pages on your site. For smaller sites, this is not an option, as the navigation menu will probably link to all your important pages. You could add in-content links, but Google only counts the first link on the page, so the in-content links would be ignored if you'd already linked yp the page in your top nav menu. I can think of several possible reasons navigation menu links could be less desirable than in content links from a Google perspective. (They are sitewide boilerplate content without context.) If you setup your navigation structure based on what is best for the user, small sites don't have much wiggle room to optimize internal link structure, as all their money pages will be linked to from the top nav menu. Do you think Google prefers in content links to navigation menu links? If so, how do you get around the fact that for many sites, all their money pages are being linked to from their main navigation menu?

              On-Page Optimization | Dec 5, 2012, 11:57 AM | AdamThompson
              0
            • HiddenPeak

              Blog on Subdomain vs. Subdirectory - Best Practices

              Hi, I have recently been told that it no longer impacts authority or rankings if a blog is set up on a subdomain (blog.domain.com) rather than a subdirectory (/blog). However, I am reluctant to do so because I remember learning how blog subdomains did not adhere to SEO best practices. Would anyone be able to shed some light on the latest SEO best practices regarding this topic? Many thanks, Erin

              On-Page Optimization | Sep 30, 2013, 4:26 PM | HiddenPeak
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter

            Access all your tools in one place. Whether you're tracking progress or analyzing data, everything you need is at your fingertips.

            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.