Link Location Still Making That Much Difference?
-
I got to thinking earlier... I know obviously footer links are always going to be the bottom of the barrel but does the rest of block level analysis still mean as much... I mean, everybody went nuts with getting in-content links only so there's a billion and one badly written spammy blogs with useless content on just for the sake of getting in-content links instead of blogroll/sidebar links. I just wonder if maybe due to that, things might have levelled out a bit for link location and we hadn't noticed... or at least there's not been much discussion over it lately.
Thoughts anyone?
-
Yeah that does clear things up in my head... do you think it's always the case though. I mean with blogs yeah I reckon it is massively, but on normal informational sites you tend to see a lot of links to "useful information" types stuff in sidebars... i.e. A website about planning permission for houses that would link to the local council for regulations, etc...
I'm just wondering if the slurry of poor content blogs with contextual links that ensued the discussions on block level a few years back has resulted in the whole idea being scaled back.
Again I would rule out the footer altogether as it will I'm sure always be considered a place where no decent link would be put. But to me, a sidebar link could be of more importance to the user than one within the content... in a sense like it's more something a site is offering users to see, standing out from the content if that makes sense.
Kind of like what you said with the list of great resources, would you usually find that in the content window? I often see them in the sidebar.
Just to clarify though, I think "When crap links to crap the position of the link does not matter." is totally right but would you say "When quality links to quality the position of the link does not matter." was absolutely the case, or do you think it does matter a bit, just not loads?
-
Well put. even if placement did not matter, I believe contextual links would have an advantage being surounded by content showing relevance, rather than being plonked somewhere
-
When crap links to crap the position of the link does not matter.
When quality links to quality the position of the link does not matter.
That is an oversimplification but think of it like this.... when a quality website gives a meritorious link to another website, they usually don't put it in their footer or in their header or in their side navigation. Instead they link to it within a blog post or within an article or within a list of great resources. All of these are in the content window of the site.
-
I think the thing is most of the sites which spam links within content google will just look at the number of links on the specific page.
If you have a blog with 30 low quality articles and each post has like 5 links within the content it is not going to pass much value.
I mean I still see websites with 100's of root domain links in the footer of their clients and they are still doing well, the thing is because they have a low number of out going links.
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
-
GWT app and link emulation
Hi, I have a gwt site - https://www.whatiswhere.com. I have tab control which emulates the menu. I am planning to put <a>links instead of text into tab labels to create internal links. I am thinking to add java script to stop onclick event of</a> <a>otherwise i will get to the new session of GWT site. What I want is to just change the tab but at the same time have a link for the crawler. Would my approach work? Will it be equivalent to non-follow link? Will it improve the ranking comparing to 'no link at all' case?</a> <a>Thanks, Andrei.</a>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Anazar_20010 -
Internal Links - Different URLs
Hey so, In my product page, I have recommended products at the bottom. The issue is that those recommended products have long parameters such as sitename.com/product-xy-z/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co&srcType=dp_recs The reason why it has that long parameter is due to tracking purposes (internally with the dev and UX team). My question is, should I replace it with the clean URL or as long as it has the canonical tag, it should be okay to have such a long parameter? I would think clean URL would help with internal links and what not...but if it already has a canonical tag would it help? Another issue is that the URL is different and not just the parameter. For instance..the canonical URL is sitename.com/productname-xyz/ and so the internal link used on the product page (same exact page just different URL with parameter) sitename.com/xyz/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co&srcType=dp_recs (missing product name), BUT still has the canonical tag!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ggpaul5620 -
Schema.org problems (still)
Hey Mozzers, I've been working at this for a while now, and I can't figure out why the rich snippet data is not getting pulled for our reviews and product rating. I've included a sample URL where we have reduced the schema.org markup: http://www.tripcentral.ca/vacations-packages_00_03_JN_gran-bahia-principe-coba.html | } | Any thoughts? I was told not to list multiple reviews, so I took them out. But it's still not being picked up in the SERPs, and we would really like the star rating data to appear. Any useful advice would be appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tripcentral0 -
Can you spot the differences?
Well, I have been scratching my head on this for days, I will try throwing the ball to you with hopes someone more experienced than me can help. The scenario is: e-commerce -> brand page -> SERP -> comparison between how two pages rank; one from my website, one from a competitor website. The brand is Michelin, the keyword is "pneumatici michelin" (equivalent in italian of “michelin tires”). I am not looking at SERP first page, where competition is surely much more fierce. I am looking at position 11: http://www.cambio-gomme.it/marchi/michelin/ And my page (not in the first 50): http://www.gomme-auto.it/pneumatici/michelin My page: MOZ Page Grade (for keyword “pneumatici michelin”): A External backlinks to the page: 1 Domain Authority: 29 Page Authority: 24 On-page SEO optimization: keyword density: 0.87% internal links: 145 external links: 3 page size: 108kb html size: 24kb words on page: 2077 link-words: 408 non-linked words: 1669 time to first byte: 0.419s Competitor page: MOZ Page Grade (for keyword “pneumatici michelin”): A External backlinks to the page: 0 Domain Authority: 26 Page Authority: 13 On-page SEO optimization: keyword density: 0.75% internal links: 70 external links: 1 page size: 31kb html size: 9kb words on page: 1521 link-words: 168 non-linked words: 1353 time to first byte: 0.373s Domain age is very similar, both websites launched close to each other in 2012. Ideas? Suggestion on other metrics to compare?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | max.favilli0 -
Page disappears from search results when Google geographic location is close to offline physical location
If you use Google to search georgefox.edu for "doctor of business administration", the first search result is http://www.georgefox.edu/business/dba/ - I'll refer to this page as the DBA homepage from here on. The second page is http://www.georgefox.edu/offices/sfs/grad/tuition/business/dba/ - I'll refer to this page as the DBA program costs page from here on. Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration+site%3Ageorgefox.edu This appears to hold true no matter what your geographic location is set to on Google. George Fox University is located in Newberg, Oregon. If you search for "doctor of business administration" with your geographic location set to a location beyond a certain distance away from Newberg, Oregon, the first georgefox.edu result is the DBA homepage. Set your location on Google to Redmond, Oregon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RCF
Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration But, if you set your location a little closer to home, the DBA homepage disappears from the top 50 search results on Google. Set your location on Google to Newberg, Oregon
Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration Now the first georgefox.edu page to appear in the search results is the DBA program costs page. Here are the locations I have tested so far: First georgefox.edu search result is the DBA homepage Redmond, OR Eugene, OR Boise, ID New York, NY Seattle, WA First georgefox.edu search result is the DBA program costs page Newberg, OR Portland, OR Salem, OR Gresham, OR Corvallis, OR It appears that if your location is set to within a certain distance of Newberg, OR, the DBA homepage is being pushed out of the search results for some reason. Can anyone verify these results? Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?0 -
Should We Link To Our News?
We just started an "In the News" section on our webpage. We are not sure what would be the best for SEO purposes. Should we link to the news websites that have the stories about our company, even if they have no link bank? Or should we just take screenshots of the news article and only link to articles that link back to us (this is what we a currently doing)? Here is our news page, http://www.buyautoparts.com/News/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | joebuilder0 -
Are menu links with the same anchor text but different destinations a problem?
My website uses the same anchor text to go to different pages, with section headers indicating where they go. Is this a problem? f so, why? Here is an example of what I mean: Women Shoes - link to women shoes Clothes - link to women clothes Accessories - link to women accessories Men Shoes - link to men shoes Clothes - link to men clothes Accessories - link to men accessories Kids Shoes - link to kids shoes Clothes - link to kids clothes Accessories - link to kids accessories
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theLotter0 -
Sitewide blog link and Article links
Hi Guys I just wanted to give you all a heads up on something I adjusted recently that worked really well and wanted to ask for your own experiences on this. 1. We have a blog that adds regular content and within the blog we link from the keyword we are targeting. Standard stuff right ! We were struggling for movement on a keyword so I removed the links from the articles and added a link on the site wide blogroll. The link on the blogroll included the keyword but was a longer descriptive link. Low and behold we got a first page listing when the changed it.The change in ranking was made a few days later. I have always been given the impression that site wide isn't that great ? So explain this one . Of course there are many other factors etc 🙂 What are your experiences and thoughts on what happened here ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinemediadirect0