Plan for Analyzing and Optimizing Internal Link Structure
-
I've noticed that our site has what appears to be a poor ratio of external-to-internal links. I know there are no hard and fast rules in SEO but generally I've come to understand that this ratio should be relatively balanced, and in some cases I've seen some correlation of high-performing/ranking sites closer to 70-30 (external-internal). I'm not going to get into specifics, but our ratio is well-below 50-50 (heavy on internal links compared to the volume of inbound external links).
My hypothesis is that this is diluting the link equity/authority for the domain. Moz's tools don't really provide any data beyond the initial data point of the volume of internal links compared to external. Being that I've never really gone down this rabbit hole before, I'm wondering if anyone else has ever experienced anything similar and could point me in the right direction.
Thanks in advance for any assistance or guidance!
-
I completely disregard those numbers. Completely.
On an informative site, I would use every genuine text connection in Article A as an opportunity to link it to other articles on the website. If you look at wikipedia articles, you will see an example of what I am talking about. We make those hyperlinks bold on our site becaused we believe that bolding increases the number of times visitors will use those links (and generates more pageviews that are monetized by ads).
On a retail site with related content articles we have two approaches.
1) On the article pages that explain the use, maintenance, selection, etc. of retail products, we use bold hyperlinks to direct the visitor to: A) pages where mentioned items are sold (this is done to help visitors easily connect to a sales page while information about the article is immediate in their mind); and, 2) pages where informative articles about that same product are located. This is very similar to the linkage on informative article sites.
- On pages where products are sold we cut back on linking, and focus on linking only to pages were accessories are sold; and pages where important information about the item being sold is explained. This decreased linkage is to help the visitor maintain their purchase intent, yet give them easy access to accessory purchases and the most important product information.
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
-
Links from Dofollow sites are Nofollow ?
Hii i have made few links from dofollow site through blog commenting method and when i checked my site on Open Site Explorer it shows Nofollow . So my question is links from Dofollow blogs will be nofollow ? There is any benefit of getting links from dofollow site through comments ? Thanks
Moz Pro | | sumit40 -
OK Crawl Test Link Question Again!
I've downloaded a crawl test and column G Link Count reads 62 and yep there are a total of 62 links on the page in question. Column AM Internal Links reads 303 and yep there are somewhere in the order of 303 pages pointing at this one. Root Domains is surprisingly low at 6, so maybe there are only 6 domains linking to this page. BUT... External Links read 51. There are not 51 links pointing away from this domain on this page, no way hozay, so can anybody tell me what is meant by 'External Links? A humble thank you in anticipation of an education. Jem
Moz Pro | | JemRobinson0 -
I have a client with a bit over 100 inbound links but Open Site Explorer shows total links on Subdomain as over 66,000, how can this be?
I have a client www.woodard247.com that shows only a bit over 100 inbound links. using the Open Site Explorer, they are a well trafficed local site and are not doing any grey hat or black hat techniques. However the rankings for their main keywords have suffered recently and we cannot identify any duplicate content or keyword stuffing issues. We have never purchased links or used link building software. Now for the main question: When we run Open Site Explorer it shows only a bit over 100 inbound links on the page and the domain, but the subdomain shows over 66,000 total links! How can this be possible? Could this be a problem? How can I find out what these links are since Open Site Explorer and Seo Spyglass both show only a hundred or so?
Moz Pro | | tjkirgin0 -
Why does the CSV report on OSE limit the number of links I can download to less than it should?
I run an inbound link report for the domain www.acornstairlifts.co.uk on OpenSiteExplorer.org using the following filters: Show: All Links from: only external Pages to: pages on this root domain Show links: ungrouped It says that there are around 30,678 links for that query. I then go to the advanced tab, and run a report using the same filters, but when I click download report I only get 2874. I've run this for the past 2 days and I get the same. Why?
Moz Pro | | Brett-Harland0 -
More than 100 links
Hi Everyone, I was trawling through You Tube and came across this video from Matt Cuts from Google about the 100 links limit being removed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6g5hoBYlf0&feature=relmfu I then logged into my SEO account as I remember a previous report we did for a competitor where they had quite a number of pages just over the 100 links, but only barely (They are highlighted in SEOmoz as a warning). Given that google has removed this number from their guidelines and it's clear that a few over 100 isn't as bad as it used to be, is it not about time this was changed or looked at again? Maybe even put ones like these under a new title such as recommendation rather that the alarmist Warning one unless it's ridiculously high? I wonder if the SEOmoz team can also find out a better range figure for it instead of the outdated 100? Regards Alan watch?v=l6g5hoBYlf0&feature=relmfu
Moz Pro | | ContactOnline0 -
Which Moz Rank and I'm seeing External or both external and internal?
I found this on the MOZ site. It confused me. "Whereas MozRank measures the link juice (ranking power) of both internal and external links, external MozRank measures only the amount of mozRank flowing through external links (links located on a separate domain). Because external links can play an important role as independent endorsements, external mozRank is an important metric for predicting search engine rankings." In the tool bar and other places in Moz am I seeing the combo Internal or the External and how do I get to each? Maybe I'm just reading this wrong. 🙂
Moz Pro | | RustyF0 -
OpenSiteExplorer is not seeing all my inbound links
I know I have back links to my site from about 5 or 6 websites and most of them even show in my Google webmaster account but according to OSE I only have 1 inbound link. Is it normal for the OSE stats to be wrong? I really want to use it but am worried the info isn't going to be accurate.
Moz Pro | | JasonHegarty0 -
Will Open Site Explorer ever show number of links over time?
OSE is an amazing tool, but do you guys at SEOmoz have any plans to develop it so we can track numbers of links over time. I need to demonstrate to clients how the link building is going, and this would be a great quick report to see how many links you found on a given day, month, year, etc. A bit like magesticSEO backlink history graph, but better 🙂
Moz Pro | | timwills0