Should I worry about limiting link count on product listing/category pages?
-
I've noticed that my link count is high (165ish for some) on my category listing pages. I've been scouring my page to see if there's any way that I can reduce the link count without restricting functionality to the end user.
Each product listing on the category page has 5 links currently:
- A link to the product in the title
- A link to the product from the image
- An 'add to compare' link
- An 'add to cart' link
- An 'add to wishlist' link
When the customer chooses to show 30 products per page, the link tally goes off the scale. So I have two questions:
Firstly - is it appropriate to keep link count down in this scenario? To elaborate - is it just inevitable that product listing pages will have lots of links, and should I just assume that Google knows this and forget about these warnings.
Secondly - There are two links to the same page (the title and image links to the product page). Does SEOmoz include this in the link count, and more importantly, will Google take heed of these when deciding whether the page is too link-heavy?
-
I'm sorry Simon but you have reached the extent of my knowledge on the topic. Many things can only be answered by a Google employee...who can't answer because of a non-disclosure agreement.
Our sources of Google info are primarily Matt Cutts, official Google announcements and the occasional response shared by a Google employee on their forums.
I would agree with you that Google is quite capable or reading and executing javascript if they want to. I plan to perform a lot of various testing in the future and this sounds like a good candidate. In the mean time, I'd welcome any additional knowledge or experience others can share on this topic.
-
Thanks for the thorough response Ryan.
I've changed the add-to links to onclick=setLocation(). It seems logical to separate the 'functional' elements of a website from the content elements.
I've read some differing opinions about the use of Javascript instead of HTML, with some people suggesting that Google is just as capable of reading Javascript syntax. Whilst I'm sure that's true, it seems like a pretty rational way of distinguishing between content and function, and I'm curious to know whether Google makes that distinction, and whether it's considered standard best-practice to separate your linking methods in this way...?
-
Thanks Stephen, I've seen some of the debate, but I'm more curious what sort of strategy is best for ecommerce sites specifically, where many of the links serve as functions rather than content links (as Ryan mentions below). Any pointers?
-
Is it just inevitable that product listing pages will have lots of links, and should I just assume that Google knows this and forget about these warnings.
When you offer 165 links on the page, they all receive the same link juice, adjusted for where they appear on the page (i.e. header, footer, navigation) and with the idea the links at the top of the page are probably given more value then links lower on the page. To this end, it has nothing to do with what Google knows, and more with how you view the importance of your pages.
One possible idea. Can the "add to" links be presented in another format to where the links were not counted by Google? Add to cart, add to wishlist, add to compare don't seem to add any value to search engines. Perhaps they can be presented in a block together and not presented as links. As for the specific method, you can use encoded javascript or other options. I suggest speaking with a programmer on this topic.
Normally I don't endorse methods to hide links but these aren't links in the traditional sense. The user is not going anywhere but instead triggering an action. When a user clicks on a product link, that is a link in the traditional sense they are taken to a new page on your site. When a user clicks on one of the "add to" buttons, the user remains on the same page and an action is performed. If you do go with the javascript method, keep in mind any adjustments necessary for analytics tracking of actions.
There are two links to the same page (the title and image links to the product page). Does SEOmoz include this in the link count, and more importantly, will Google take heed of these when deciding whether the page is too link-heavy?
SEOmoz will count every link regardless of whether it is to the same target or not. No one knows for sure how Google handles the situation. Opinions on this topic vary. Over time I have seen theories going each way. We know for sure Google only associates anchor text with the first link to a target page. The weighting factors involved with multiple links are open to speculation.
-
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
-
Page with "Missing Title Tag" isn't a page
Hello, I am going through the various errors that the Moz Pro Crawl report and some non-existent pages keep coming up in the report. For example, one error category is "Missing Title Tag" with one page identified. But this page http://www.immigroup.com/news/“http%3A/crs.yorku.ca”?page=2 isn't real. It would have been a 404 were there not a redirect for everything that is /news/gobbledygook to /news. So my question is: when moz (or GA for that matter) identifies these pages as "real" and having errors, do I need to take this seriously? And what do I do about it? Thanks! George
Moz Pro | | canadageorge0 -
Why are inbound links not showing?
I run the site http://www.eurocheapo.com and am finding that many inbound links are not showing up in OSE and on the toolbar. For example, check out this hotel review: http://www.eurocheapo.com/paris/hotel/hotel-esmeralda.html In OSE it shows only 2 links (from 1 domain), which is crazy. It has dozens of inbound links from many different domains (links:http://www.eurocheapo.com/paris/hotel/hotel-esmeralda.html). I notice this all over my site. Pages that we link between are also showing no internal links -- which is easy to disprove. Was there a problem with this crawl? Or is the problem in our code? Many thanks for your help, Tom
Moz Pro | | TomNYC0 -
Seo moz has only crawled 2 pages of my site. Ive been notified of a 403 error and need an answer as to why my pages are not being crawled?
SEO Moz has only crawled 2 pages of my clients site. I have noticed the following. A 403 error message screaming frog also cannot crawl the site but IIS can. Due to the lack of crawling ability, im getting no feed back on my on page optimization rankings or crawl diagnostics summary, so my competitive analysis and optimization is suffering Anybody have any idea as to what needs to be done to rectify this issue as access to the coding or cms platform is out of my hands. Thank you
Moz Pro | | nitro-digital0 -
Page authority questions?
I've been analyzing some IT communities ...in order to check how relevant is the page authority vs PageRank. I found one main site which is organized by "communities'..and every community is a sub-domain. The root domain has an authority of 90/100 which it should be great......so the sub-domains "inherit" part of this authority.... Until here everything seems to be perfect. However, I went deeper and I picked one of these communities. Analyzing the "Linking Root Domain" I discovered it only has only 5 root domains pointing to its home page. Those 5 Root Domains have generated more than 134k links. That doesn't seem to be "natural". Checking those 5 Root Domains I discovered that they have been registered by the same Root Domain site. Ex: Main domain: Domain.com Community1.domain.com Community2.domain.com.... Linking Root Domains: DomainXY.com DomainABC.com DomainRST.com DomainFGH.com DomainOPQ.com It seems to me that it is easy to cheat the authority domain score. Just creating others sites developing the same topic and generating back links to your main domain
Moz Pro | | SherWeb0 -
Competitive Link Finder
Hi, just wondering if I am the only one who is not having much luck lately using the Competitive Link Finder . In the past it has worked pretty well. But as of the past week or so, it has only returned on link. I know there are many of them which should be found. Anyway, just curious if I am solo with this issue.
Moz Pro | | APICDA0 -
Ultimate Ranking Tool integrating Analytics / Adwords / Google WM Tools
I currently use SEOMOZ Campaigns and Advanced Web Ranking for monitoring our KW rankings and those of competition. AWR is a brilliant tool with so many different reports, methods of viewing etc. SEOMOZ campaigns are good but don't come close to the monitoring power of AWR (EG I monitor over 50 competitors on over 1000 KW's on a Daily basis with AWR and recieve a variety of set emailed reports on the data). However, one thing that SEOMOZ campaigns have that is useful is the traffic data - but this is still a bit basic and I think could be improved. The problem with AWR is that it doesn't integrate with your Analytics / Adwords / Google WM Tools - so it is only showing you half the picture. Knowing how your site ranks for each keyword is helpful, but it would be nice to understand the value of each keyword. For example, being able to see your rank position and how much traffic that keyword has sent you over time would be helpful. It would also be nice to see the number of searches that are performed for that keyword each month . For example, lets say I saw that I was ranking at number 11 for “hover mower” and getting 500 hits per month. Two months from now, if I was ranking at position 7, it would be nice to be able to immediately see how that changed the amount of traffic I was receiving for the term. Is a position of 11 (first item on page two) better than position 10 (last item on page one)? If you can link it to your analytics, you could then link it to your goals, and goal values to get a complete picture of where your keywords rank the value of the rank, and the improvment on that value when rank changes. If browsed around for such software but can't find anything like this - does anyone know of any software that can do this - or something close to this? Many thanks
Moz Pro | | James770 -
How come when I export a error list I can only export the first page?
I am working on fixing the 4xx errors. I have found the easiest way to do this would be to export the list, print it out, and check off the ones i've fixed. The site only lets me export the first page. We'll appreciate any help. Thanks, Ryan D. Gran --Not sure what category this question belongs in so selected SEOmoz Tools--
Moz Pro | | dggusmc0 -
Duplicate page content reports duplicates, but pages don't show duplication
My duplicate page reports shows 376 pages with duplicate content. After reviewing the pages the report claims have duplicate content, i can't find duplications. could this be an error, or is there some source code that doesn't display that could be causing this issue?
Moz Pro | | noonzie0