Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Self-referencing links
-
I personally think that self-referencing links are silly. It's blatantly easy for Google to tell and my instinct says that the link juice for this would simply evaporate rather than passing back to itself.
Does anyone have information backing me up from an authoritative source? I can't find any info about this linked to Matt Cutts, Rand or any of those I look up to.
-
Howdy,
Depends on your definition of self-referencing links, as there are several degrees.
- Internal links, pointing from one page to another
- On page anchor links, simply pointing to another part of the same page, usually for navigation purposes
- Truly self-referencing, where a link simply points to it's own page in an attempt to trick a search engine.
Normal internal links (1) are an important part of any website and give search engines important clues about relevance, site structure, and how to flow signals like PageRank. Internal links are very important for SEO, but also the most easy to abuse, so you can get yourself in trouble if you overdo it with aggressive over linking or over-optimized anchor text. And keep in mind that while internal links are important, they don't pack near the punch as authoritative external links.
Internal anchors (2) such as http://example.com#football are also important for navigation, and Google does use them often for clues about content and structure. You'll often see internal anchors show up in search results, especially for sites like Wikipedia.
Finally, I don't see any value in the truly self-referencing link (3). A page that points to itself seems like a mistake, and using it to game a search engine is most likely a bad idea.
As for authoritative sources, you could look at the 2011 Ranking Factors, which shows that the # of internal links on the page is fairly correlated with high rankings. (and notice the anchor in that link, as well
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO!
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
-
Broken canonical link errors
Hello, Several tools I'm using are returning errors due to "broken canonical links". However, I'm not too sure why is that. Eg.
Technical SEO | | GhillC
Page URL: domain.com/page.html?xxxx
Canonical link URL:Â domain.com/page.html
Returns an error. Any idea why? Am I doing it wrong? Thanks,
G1 -
Do Canonical Tags Pass Link Juice?
I have an ecommerce website where some pages link to a product page with a different URL. EXAMPLE: 1: /category/product1.html (not indexed by Google) with canonical pointing to product1.html Other page link to the product like below. 2: product1.html (indexed by Google) Now the question is, does 1: pass any link juice to product1.html or not? Is it worth to change everything and link only to one URL? My site is running on Magento!
Technical SEO | | bill3690 -
301 Redirect for multiple links
I just relaunched my website and changed a permalink structure for several pages where only a subdirectory name changed. What 301 Redirect code do I use to redirect the following? I have dozens of these where I need to change just the directory name from "urban-living" to "urban", and want it to catch the following all in one redirect command. Here is an example of the structure that needs to change. OldÂ
Technical SEO | | shawnbeaird
domain.com/urban-living (single page w/ content)
domain.com/urban-living/tempe (single page w/ content)
domain.com/urban-living/tempe/the-vale (single page w/ content) NewÂ
domain.com/urbanÂ
domain.com/urban/tempeÂ
domain.com/urban/tempe/the-vale0 -
How to set up internal linking with subcategories?
I'm building a new website and am setting up internal link structure with subcategories and hoping to do so with best Seo practices in mind. When linking to a subcategory's main page, would I make the internal link www.xxx.com/fishing/ or www.xxx.com/fishing/index.html or does it matter? I'm just trying to avoid duplicate content I guess, if Google saw each page as a separate page. Any other cautions when using subdirectories in my navigation?
Technical SEO | | wplodge0 -
How to find all crawlable links on a particular page?
Hi! This might sound like a newbie question, but I'm trying to find all crawlable links (that google bot sees), on a particular page of my website. I'm trying to use screaming frog, but that gives me all the links on that particular page, AND all subsequent pages in the given sub-directory. What I want is ONLY the crawlable links pointing away from a particular page. What is the best way to go about this? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | AB_Newbie0 -
Links under Meta Description when performing a search
Doing research for clients, I have came across seeing sites displaying hyperlinks underneath their own meta description. keywords that I have googled that result with hyperlinks displaying under meta descriptions: Google'd: iacquire (brand) bmw wheels (Beyern Wheels, position 1) aftermarket bmw wheels (MMR Wheels, position 2) These companys have hyperlinks underneath their descriptions. Anyone have any ideas why this happens or how it happens?
Technical SEO | | frnprz0 -
Is there a suggested limit to the amount of links on a sitemap?
Currently, I have an error on my moz dashboard indicating there are too many links on one of my pages.  That page is the sitemap.  It was my understanding all internal pages should be linked to the sitemap. Can any mozzers help clarify the best practice here? Thanks, Clayton
Technical SEO | | JorgeUmana0 -
Find broken links in Excel?
Hello, I have a large list of URL's in an excel sheet and I am looking for a way to check them for 404 errors. Please help! Adam
Technical SEO | | digitalops0