Will a mega menu on all pages dilute the link juice?
-
On our web site (http://www.betxpert.com) we have a mega menu with quite a lot of links in it. I am getting warnings in SEOmoz saying we have far to many links in our pages. But a lot of pages have large menus with a lot of links - are all pages punished for this then?
My primary question is: Since the menu is on all pages, the pages linked in the menu will have a link in from all of our pages (200K+ pages) and a lot of these do not have a good ranking. So what I want to know is if the pages linked in the menu will have lower ranking because of the many links in - or is this a good thing?
Should I consider setting "nofollow" for som of the links on other pages than the homepage (since this is the page with the best rank)?
-
The Stackoverflow site is likely a very bad example to try and follow for two main reasons. First off, it has millions of links and is the #105 most trafficked site in the world. Does your site have similar stats?
Also, it is a forum site. In many senses, a site is a site, but you also need to consider business models. I have used Stack Overflow for years, but today is the first time I have ever been to the site's home page. Would that be ok for your site?
You mention their home page does not hinder usability? I disagree. If you offer 100 links on a page, some people still struggle to locate the right link. When you offer 700 links on a page, many users will be lost.
In short, stackoverflow has a good business model but you will likely not be happy with your SEO results if you attempt to emulate their home page.
-
Depending on how much link juice a page has, really rules how many links it can have.
link juice of a page is split between its links. Each link passes 85% of its link juice, this is so link juice does not flow for ever and stops eternal loops
but even losing 15% link juice as link juice passes though links it will never reach 0, as there with always be 85% left, so at some stage link juice becomes too small to pass on and is discarded.so to get back to my point, if you have too many links it may be that you have split link juice so small that it is discarded and not passed.
Also it would seem that Bing will only index so many links
http://thatsit.com.au/seo/reports/violation/the-page-contains-too-many-hyperlinks
So usability is really secondary
-
What about in the case of tags? Can you speak to this? Look at the home page of Stackoverflow... Tons of links, and most of them are tags for questions. They do not hinder usability at all, and yet a site will still suffer in SEO/indexation because of this?
-
What about in the case of tags? Can anyone speak to this? Look at the home page of Stackoverflow... Tons of links, and most of them are tags for questions. They do not hinder usability at all, and yet a site will still suffer in SEO/indexation because of this?
-
You presently have 348 links on your home page. It is far too many.
You are welcome to keep those links, but it will likely be a poor user experience and your search results will be negatively impacted as well.
If I operated your current site I would redesign it in such a manner so there were under 100 links on your home page. If there are 120 or 140, that can work fine. 348 is far too many, especially for a site with DA of 31.
-
Thanks for the replies in this thread. I've reduced the homepage to about 300-350 links now. That should give me some affect one should think.
-
The number of links on your home page seem too many, but if you have that same menu on every page then I would worry.
You want to try to get a flat as posible linking structure, without losing user exprience. You want as many pages linking to your landing pages, and few to your non ranking pages.
i have a simple tutorial explaining of how page rank flows, hope it explains a little.
http://perthseocompany.com.au/seo/tutorials/a-simple-explanation-of-pagerank
-
Hi Atul,
You go to analytics, and go to "Content". There you find "In-Page Analysis". I just tried it today. Really cool
You can check for several types of users, and see how many of your links have been clicked by over 0%, 0,01% and so on. In this way you can locate the links which are not clicked at all.
-
Hi Ryan,
"You can use Google Analytics or other tools to determine which links are not used"
Would you please clarify about doing link analysis using GA ?.
Thanks
-
Correct.
You will be choosing to flow link juice to your more important pages.
You can use Google Analytics or other tools to determine which links are not used. In most cases, footer links are seldom used. If you were to perform a link analysis of your home page you will likely find only a small percentage of those links are actually used. While you are familiar with your site imagine being a first time visitor to the site and trying to find the right link out of a list of 700+.
-
So can i conclude, that the high number of links in my menu and footer actually dilutes the link juice for all link (on all pages). If i trim the number of links I should see a better passing of rank value throughout my website?
-
But our link count has been this high for a long time.
Are you happy with your site's current SEO performance? If so, there is no need to change. If you wish to improve your site's SEO, I would suggest your link structure is a major issue.
So you are telling me, that if i decrease the link count my page will have a higher authority?
No. Your authority remains the same whether you have 1 link or 1000. The difference is how that authority is distributed throughout your site.
The concept of optimization is about prioritizing. You want the most link juice to go to the most important pages such as your money page, official interviews, and the most popular articles.
The trimming of links is most important on the homepage or should this be done on each and every page?
It should be done of every page. It is more important on the home page, but it affects every page.
-
But our link count has been this high for a long time.
So you are telling me, that if i decrease the link count my page will have a higher authority?
The trimming of links is most important on the homepage or should this be done on each and every page?
-
Should I consider setting "nofollow" for some of the links on other pages than the homepage?
Definitely not. When you nofollow a link, you do not save any link juice. You stop the link juice of flowing to the link but it does not flow to other links on your page.
The idea of optimizing your links is to step back and take a fresh look at your links and question whether they are all truly necessary and helpful. Your home page presently offers over 700 links. You really need to cut your link count to less then 100.
The primary recommendation is to provide links to the main category pages, but not all the subcategories. For example you have a Bookmaker link on your home page, then list out 25 different bookmakers. Instead simply link to the Bookmaker page and offer the bookmaker links there. Apply this process to all your categories.
The New York Times is about the most packed home page of links a site can reasonably offer, then their link count is half of yours. They can support having that many links because their DA is 100, the maximum possible for a web site, whereas your DA is 31. You really need to find a way to get under 100 links. If you do not make a change, your rankings and site indexation will suffer.
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
-
On-Page / Site Optimization+Link Building -check help!
HI all, have also Question One, i don't understand how is this website : competitor website http://hack-clash-royale. com/ beter them my website i analze i have more more backlink and my website is strong have good seo but not on first position, you can tell me what is problem, my website is 4-5# and competitor 1-2# .. thanks
Link Building | | Fahad5Saleem0 -
Links from my Own Blog to my Own Website and Link Scheme
Hi There, I use my own blog to give advices and offer information related to my business service. Of course in terms of SEO my blog is useful not only to expand my brand presence but also to acquire long-tail traffic. I use to insert a maximum of one link with a relative matching anchor text in every article of my blog pointing to my own webpage. Said that, the questions are as follows: Am I involuntarily participating in a Link Scheme with my blog? And If so, how many links can I send to my own webpage ? Shall I limit the number of links to a minimum? Thanks a lot for your advices.
Link Building | | Midleton0 -
How to handle bad DoFollow links to pages on my site that no longer exist
I briefly had a forum on one of my sites, but after getting inundated with spam I decided to remove it for the time being. During the brief time it was up, most of the spammers were stopped from registering, but a few managed to get through and posted tons of links to their prescription drug sites. These posts were deleted almost instantly, but the spammers also created DoFollow backlinks on high authority community sites like ning. The forum posts they linked to were deleted immediately, so the links never went anywhere and the forum has been deleted entirely for a few months now. When clicked, the spam backlinks now bring someone to a "Sorry, that page doesn’t exist" page on my site. My site suffered a bit in the last Panda update and it made me look through my backlink profile, finding lots of these links - even though the pages on my site are long gone, could these links be hurting my site? Can a DoFollow link to a site help or hurt the main domain, even if the actual page it's linking to is deleted?
Link Building | | adventurenick0 -
Will placing links in articles on my site help my rankings?
I have a few page rank 2 articles on my site. Will placing links to other pages on my site with appropriate anchor text in the body of these articles help the other pages to rank higher for the anchor text i place in these links in the articles? Thanks in advance! Ron
Link Building | | Ron100 -
Does Link Juice Flow From Banner Ads.
Hi Guys I have been checking out a couple of my competitors and noticed that in site explorer there were sites that were passing what I would consider strong amounts of link juice for their banner adverts. I checked the anchor text which was always (Img ALT) Also the links are follow and placed on the home page too. So I wondered how google view this Im sure adverts were supposed to be no follow and if so then do you think there is a benefit from me taking one of these banner adverts to increase the level of link juice passing to my site.
Link Building | | RankStealer0 -
LINK BUILDING - Does it really matter if the link is not relevant?
Hi guys, I have just done a lot of link buillding and I thought I am just going to link build and I am not going to go after RELVANT links. I have property/real esate website and I have been any kind of link builidng and I have noteced some good increases in rankings.. So my questions is; Does it really matter if the link is relvant to property or real estate if I have got ranking increases? Or will it later harm my site?? Thanks Gareth
Link Building | | GAZ091 -
Linking to Google Place page??
I'm wondering if anybody has tried and had success in improving search rankings by creating links to Google Place pages. What say you?
Link Building | | bdiddy0