Empty href damages SEO? (href="#")
-
Hello,
I'm analyzing a website with thousands of pages.
I realized that on many of them they have empty links such href="#".I wonder if that will cause any SEO damage, or if Google will just ignore it as there isn't any link?
I was reading about it and people seems to not be sure, although they recommend on forums to user the CSS pointer clickable instead of empty link.
Let me know your opinion on this please!
Thank you in advance!
-
Thank you for the insight. I agree with your insight. You are correct in saying that it will affect signals because there is no link. And also not an SEO issue.
-
The only reason to use a fragment (the hashtag part of a URL is called a fragment) as your anchor, is that you're adding that link solely for the purpose of tying it to a DOM event (like an onclick event). There's better ways to do this in modern web programming, but it's still possible to see some old school sites doing
By definition, fragments exist solely for the client. Your web server will not log them. Google Analytics does not natively track them. So clicking on an empty fragment like that will just take you back to the top of your page (provided the JS doesn't stop the event). There's nothing to track. But there's something interesting to note here
Google can actually do some basic JS and it will recognize this bad attempt at link obfuscation as an actual link. So if you have links similar to this (which is not recommended) then those links will be counted as links. Be aware of this if you're worried about backlinks.
-
I think you need to take a look at the page and how these have been used because it sounds like you haven't understood what the actual problem is fully.
With regards to relevance, it will probably give search engines signals that this page is no longer relevant and therefore affecting the frequency of the crawl for that domain/subdomain/page
It won't do that because they aren't complete links.
This is basically a means to an end. It serves a purpose and while there are better options to achieve what they want, this is certainly not an SEO issue.
-Andy
-
In my opinion, pertaining to your case of "empty links", does it affect SEO? The answer probably lies in the amount of it. Maybe there is no direct impact if there is maybe 1 or 2 or even 10 links. In summary, yes it does affect SEO in the sense of it is not able to pass the juice. Think about a nice or highly searched keyword in an article - [Some nice keywords] and this anchor text does not go anywhere. The link equity probably gets passed no where and probably limited to that page only. With regards to relevance, it will probably give search engines signals that this page is no longer relevant and therefore affecting the frequency of the crawl for that domain/subdomain/page. Indirectly and overtime, this will affect SERP for that domain.
As far as how many empty href wills start affecting SEO? It will be interesting to see this experiment. Any takers? I'll leave this to the SEO heavy weights or SEO nerds.
Correction: I agree to Andy's comment below.
-
Something i'd never thought about: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/anchor-links.html
So looks to not have an impact according to that article.
-
It looks like it's been done to activate certain functions, but it might have been a bit of a lazy way to do it.
However, because of the fact that they are a null link but they might show a description or more information, I can't see that this would ever cause issues to SEO.
Have you noticed that there has been any drop in positions that make you feel like they could be causing problems?
-Andy
-
Hey,
Well they are the maybe because some bug importing, and there are thousands of them like that.
We do not need that for any reason. Problem is that I will just request a change in case of being bad for SEO, otherwise it can be expensive to have someone spending days on that just because...https://www.prozis.com/pt/pt/xcore/xtreme-l-carnitine-3000mg-20-vials
If you go almost to the footer, you will see on bold this heading - under that you have some bulletins with the # link that I referred:
Principais Benefícios de Xtreme L-Carnitine 3000
-
Hi,
Is there a reason they are there? Do they serve any purpose at all?
I would be surprised if Google did anything with them and would probably just see it as a bit of spurious code. Are you able to share an example?
-Andy
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 there a downside to "closing" a domain and 301'ing to to your main domain?
We have a domain which was optimized for a specific keyword. It does very well for that keyword, but seems like it has in turn caused our primary domain to be penalized (back to page 3) for that same keyword (We think they've figured out the connection). The optimized domain (only one page) has links on it to our primary domain, so I don't want to delete it as that's where our traffic currently comes from. But if I deleted it and 301'ed it to the primary domain is there a downside? Alternatively I could disavow it, but if the search engines know it's the same owner will they hold that against all domains? Or, alternatively again. Should I turn it into a more substantial website? Which could in turn remove it's "spamminess". Any suggestions are welcomed!
Link Building | | absoauto0 -
Local Personal training studio needs SEO advice. Is directory submission they way forwards?
I have a local personal training business and am struggling to push our website to the top of local personal training searches despite already having a better domain and trust score than almost all of the higher ranked competitors. The website has only been live around 4 months but I was wondering if submitting to paid directories would help me to rank on page one? our website is www.danielalexandra.com
Link Building | | DAlondon0 -
My competitors all seem to use "junk" pages to rank / backlink, how to compete and not cheat
Hello, Page 1 of Google for the word "copier lease" and most other valuable copier leasing terms are dominated by the same 4-5 for organic (PPC too of course, but organic is what I want) They all use some SEO company, so when I go and look for good link oppertunities, most of the pages I find are just SEO companies who of couse would never be interested in a competitor's link. Examples: ajaxunion blogspot com or excellentpoly blogspot com and the list goes on, all just AjaxUnion "blog pages". blog homerenovationguide com /2011/06/15/repair-or-replace is just inhouse SEO making ranking pages for CostOwl. So, its hard NOT to want to throw up a blog farm and do as "the Romans do". What ideas do you all have to get backlinks in this market of Copier Leasing that would hold up. Thanks 6SW66.png 6SW66.png
Link Building | | einstein99992 -
Difference between rel="nofollow" and rel="no follow"
Does rel****=****"nofollow" mean the same thing as rel=****"no follow"? I mean written in one word or two words. Can Google feel the difference? Thanks
Link Building | | DDL0 -
SEO Firm recommendations?
I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a quality SEO company that focuses primarily on building links on high quality sites? So many of the SEO firms are too slick with their sales people and content analysis and research and reports & B.S. What I'd like is an honest company who will simply help me acquire high quality links. Any SEO companies out there that can help??? Most SEO companies are also way too expensive. I'm looking for quality @ a value. Can anyone help?
Link Building | | applesofgold0 -
Remove Unatural Links by SEO Co.
The SEO firm we hired built 2797 links with 123 domain within two month period (March and April) when we don't know better. We received Google's warning on 3/28, and they didn't tell us anything but keep building. Well, that's history now. We learned our lesson. That's why we are a member of SEOmoz. The SEO firm is not too keen on helping us remove the link (we've discontinue the service) after one initial attempt to a few site with tons of links (performed by their Indian team). I've got advice from this Forum regarding link removal. The most suggestions we get is to remove it as many as possible and move on building good links. But, I am afraid such approach will take us years to come ahead as we are under staffed. I saw here that someone mentioned their link building firm wants to charge $10 for links removed. Based on that idea, I wonder if I should offer some monetary incentive? If so, what amount would make financial sense?
Link Building | | ypl0 -
Would you advise removing a "links" page?
I'm doing a site audit for someone and they have a links page full of reciprocal links for other similar businesses across the country. My gut instinct is to remove this page. How would you approach this if this was your client?
Link Building | | MarieHaynes0 -
What link building techniques do you teach to new hires with no SEO experience?
Right now I train my interns and new hires on 5 techniques: 1. Appropriate blog commenting the right way 2. Saving social bookmarks 3. Submitting a website to a directory 4. Publishing articles with links 5. How to build up, maintain and use a Twitter/Facebook/Digg/StumbleUpon profile for SEO Are there some other lower level link building tactics you have tried to teach interns or new hires?
Link Building | | DanDeceuster0