Linking to own homepage with keywords as link text
-
I recently discovered, that previous SEO work on a client's website apparently included setting links from subpages to the homepage using keywords as link text that the whole website should rank for.
i.e. (fictional example) a subpage about chocolate would link to the homepage via "Visit the best sweet shop in Dallas and get a free sample."
I am dubious about the influence this might have - anybody with any tests? I also think that it is quite weird when considering user friendliness - at least I would not expect such a link to take me to the homepage of the very site I was just on, probably browsing in a relevant page.
So, what about such links: actually helpful, mostly don't matter or even potentially harmful?
Looking forward to your opinions!
Nico
-
Thanks, guys, for confirming my thoughts on this! I shall surely change those links and make something more useful out of them.
Regards
Nico
-
This likely has little to no effect on negative or positive rankings. If this is something in your breadcrumbs, it's just silly is all. It's not going to hurt you, not going to help you either.
I would remove this, and simply set up your internal links in a user-friendly way that makes sense and does not look spammy. That said, you're right, it has very little influence.
-
Maybe doesn't have any impact at all, would be different if another site links in that way the homepage.
But, Internal Linking is one of the multiple SEO signals (with little impact). Instead linking back the homepage, I would recommend link other subpages from any page ONLY if that link will be helpful to the visitor to check other products/similar topics/related info/etc (you are right about friendliness) If not, avoid to link only thinking about rank.
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
-
Re: Inbound Links. Whether it's HTTP or HTTPS, does it still go towards the same inbound link count?
Re: Inbound Links. If another website links to my website, does it make a difference to my inbound link count if they use http or https? Basically, my site http://mysite.com redirects to https://mysite.com, so if another website uses the link http://mysite.com, will https://mysite.com still benefit from the inbound links count? I'm unsure if I should reach out to all my inbound links to tell them to use my https URL instead...which would be rather time consuming so just checking http and https counts all the same. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | premieresales0 -
"Null" appearing as top keyword in "Content Keywords" under Google index in Google Search Console
Hi, "Null" is appearing as top keyword in Google search console > Google Index > Content Keywords for our site http://goo.gl/cKaQ4K . We do not use "null" as keyword on site. We are not able to find why Google is treating "null" as a keyword for our site. Is anyone facing such issue. Thanks & Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore0 -
Keyword Rankings: One keyword dropped, dragging other rankings down. Possible or not?
Hey moz fans, So these week I noticed significant drop in rankings... But what caught my attention is that one specific keyword dropped 18 positions, and all the other just 1-3. Print screen: http://prntscr.com/7fb4g4 Do you think it's possible that the drop of that page, that went 18 positions down, brought the whole domain down? Or is it another cause?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kokolo0 -
What to do with my keyword rich domainnames?
Hi, We have a holiday home rental business in Italy (Umbria). At this moment the language of the site is dutch and we targeting at the dutch and belgium market. We now in the fase of developing/adding 2 more languages, german and english. The url structure is going to is/be. dutch version (live)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | remcozwaan
domainname.com/nl
domeinname.com/nl/vakantiehuizen English (en) version (dev)
domainname.com/en
domeinname.com/en/villas
domeinname.com/en/villas/name-of-the-villa
domeinname.com/en/apartments
ect German (de) version (dev)
domainname.com/de
domeinname.com/de/ferienwohnung
domeinname.com/de/erienwohnung/name-of-the-ferienwohnung
domeinname.com/de/ferienhauser
domeinname.com/de/ferienhauser/name-of-the-ferienhauser
ect I have some registred some keyword rich domainnames like vakantiehuizeninumbrie.com (nl)
ferienwohnungumbrien.de (de)
ect question: Is it a good approach (seo wise) to point the keyword rich domainname to the specified landingpage. By example: point ferienwohnungumbrien.de to the page domeinname.com/de/ferienwohnung ? mille grazie! remco0 -
Keyword Selection - Long Tail or not long tail keyword
Hi Friends, We have a keyword "plus size clothing" but we used this as "plus size clothing 2012" to Cover the both keywords "Plus size clothing" and "Plus size clothing 2012" My question is, are we still focusing on "plus size clothing" when use "plus size clothing 2012" instead of the main keyword.? What strategy do yo suggest that when to use long tail and when to not. (when I talk to use a long tail than it means use it prominently on the page as main keyword should be used.)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alexgray0 -
Removing Canonical Links
We implemented rel=canonical as we decided to paginate our pages. We then ran some testing and on the whole pagination did not work out so we removed all on-page pagination. Now, internally when I click for example a link for Widgets I get the /widgets.php but searching through Google I get to /widgets.php?page=all . There are not redirects in place at the moment. The '?page=all' page has been rated 'A' by the SEOmoz tool under On Page Optimization reports and performs much better than the exact same page without the '?page=all' (the score dips to a 'D' grade) so need to tread carefully so we don't lose the link value. Can anyone advise us on the best way forward? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jannkuzel0 -
Content linking ?
If you have links on the left hand side of the website on the Navigation and content at the bottom of the page and link to the same page with different anchor text or the same would it help the page (as it is surrounded by similar text) or is the first one counted and this is it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Too many links!
Hi, I'm running a wordpress blog (modhop.com) and am getting the "too many links" on almost all of my pages. It appears that in addition to basic site navigation I have plug-ins that create invisible links that are counted in the crawl...at least that's my guess. Is there a good way to control this in wordpress? A nofollow in the .htaccess? A plug-in that does this? (I'm sort of at novice-plus level here so the simplest solution is ideal.) Thanks! Jake modhop.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | modhop0