Keep or remove a link directory with 700 entries?
-
Hi,
I've a site which has a link directory included. About 700 entries. Each entry has an own page with a title, description and of course a link to the extern site. The link is not marked as "nofollow".
The site is only linking to similar / relevent other sites.
Now the seo question:
- Keep the link directory as is?
- Add a nofollow to the links?
- Remove the link directory? (and about 700 pages)
Best wishes,
Georg.
-
Hi Matt + Alan,
thanks for your fast answers!
Well, the directory only gets 0,33% of all traffic. So I will delete it, that saves the maintenance time + cost.
Best wishes,
Georg. -
do the pages generate any traffic? do they attract any links? if so keep them,
A nofollow will make no difference, nofollows use and much link juice as any other link, it just not pass it to the linked page, it just gets wasted. They do not save you anything.
The only time to use a no-follow is when you are linking to a spammy site,a nd you dont want to be connected to it.
You should also look at your internal linking, having a lot of pages can be an advanatge if lined correctly
http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/a-simple-explanation-of-pagerank -
Hi Georg,
It really depends what the link directory consists of.
From what you have said, as they have their individual page with all of the information about the website, title, etc, then this seems like a very legitimate directory.
What I think your task should be is to police the information on the individual pages. Look to see if there is use of the linking website's keywords on there, and if so, remove them. Keep only content that is relevant to the website that is being linked too.
You could add on the 'nofollow' tags to the links if you like, however, I think the most important thing is to just manage all of the pages to ensure that they are serving their purpose as a directory and not just a link network. If this is done then it should be perfectly fine.
Hope this helps
Matt.
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
-
Why did Moz remove thumbs down from blog posts?
You may have already noticed one of the decisions we made when we redesigned the Moz Blog:
Content Development | | Trevor-Klein
We removed thumbs down from the posts. And it was largely in the name of transparency. Wait, HUH? You took away a method of critique, and you're calling that transparent? Yes. Here's the scoop: Thumbs down are one of the most cryptic, uninformative, and often passive-aggressive forms of feedback on the Internet today. By removing the mud from the water, we make the entire picture clearer. It's so easy to see a handful of thumbs down on a post (we would almost always get 1-2), and begin hypothesizing what went wrong. We shouldn't have published that one. The topic was too tangentially relevant; it was too long or too hard to follow. There wasn't enough evidence to support the claims. We could dive into analytics, attempting to glean clues about what happened, but in reality, any one of the following are reasons someone might thumb a post down: The title is confusing The topic is one that I'd like to deny exists (algo update, e.g.) The milk I poured on my cereal this morning had gone bad, and I need to take out this frustration somehow I once had a falling-out with the author of this post I still have a bad taste in my mouth about yesterday's post, which is skewing my thoughts about this one I found one of the comments offensive My finger slipped on my phone while I was trying to thumb this post up (we've confirmed this happens) I didn't like the author's self-promotion in this post I saw the new Star Wars trailer, and am terrified that Disney might think including Jar Jar's long-lost brother in the new film is a good idea. I hate everything right now. Okay, the last one might be a stretch. But you get the idea. Sometimes a post would receive a disproportionate amount of thumbs down simply because the author was proposing an idea that wasn't popular, no matter its importance. One great example: Carson Ward wrote a fabulous post in 2012 titled "Guest Blogging – Enough is Enough," divining what Matt Cutts would write about nearly 17 months later. The response? 45 thumbs down – one of the most maligned posts in the history of the Moz Blog. Authors have emailed us in a tizzy, asking if their thumbs down meant they weren't quite right for the Moz audience, and in replying to them we came to this overarching realization: We didn't know why they got thumbs down, and we couldn't find out with any certainty, but more often than not it just didn't really matter. We were confident in their points and their presentation, and real criticism would nearly always show up in the comments. All that said, we love it when people offer up constructive criticism. We always take it to heart, and hearing directly from you all is the best way we can improve. For that reason among many others, we'll always have the comments below the post. If you feel like a post wasn't up to snuff, please take a moment and tell us why in those threads (please keep it TAGFEE). One last note: Thumbs down remain available on comments, though that's a temporary stop-gap while we work on a more informative system for flagging comments that are offensive, or facepalm-worthy attempts at links (they're nofollowed anyway!), or otherwise inappropriate for our community. We'd love your questions or comments on this change, and hope you're enjoying the new look of the Moz and YouMoz blogs!11 -
What if your content is getting social shares but no links?
Suppose you have a weekly blog article and sometimes your articles earn social shares (e.g. 23 +1's on Google Plus on one article but normally 3-5 social shares). One out of 10 earns an organic link from a random blog. Would you continue publishing these blog posts?
Content Development | | ProjectLabs0 -
This would not be considered selling links would it?
I have a site that is an informational site about a particular market segment. It is not a directory at all, but as part of the site I have pages for the various vendors, and have "states" pages that list which vendors sell in those states. The site makes very good money on adsense. But I see opportunity in getting the vendors to pay to be listed in our site. At a minimum, grandfather in those already there, and then charge for new companies to be included. Most of the new companies are second-tier players anyway, and if they decode not to pay and get in, it's not to a detriment ot my site. But I do have companies lining up wanting to get in. Of course my first thought, is what will Google think? I would of course make any link out to one of the vendors NOFOLLOW, so even even though they pay for inclusion on our site, I am not selling links for page juice. Google loves us in search right now, so they have a favorable opinion of us. The site has lots of content, and new blog posts and comments all most pages hourly. So, is this going to be okay with Google? I don't see how it breaks any rules, but thought I'd better check. One further worry: If I change the new guys for inclusion on the site, and don't charge the old ones, that means I'd have the new guys NOFOLLOW, but the old ones would still be DOFOLLOW if I don't change them. I don't want Google to be confused thinking I might have sold those existing DOFOLLOW links as well. So, should I change them all to NOFOLLOW? And if I do, does that then cause anything that Google would not like (I know they don't like pagerank hoarding).
Content Development | | bizzer0 -
Duplicate external links?
I have been guest posting at a variety of reputable blogs in my niche. I generally write once or twice a month and have a bio link with a link to my blog. I'm wondering if multiple links from the same domain (but different pages) helps, or if there are some diminishing returns here. Should I only be writing one post for them? Of course, there are other non-SEO benefits too, because these are reputable sites. But I'm wondering how this helps my SEO? Thanks in advance!
Content Development | | JodiFTM0 -
Need a referee on article links
I need a referee on an issue. I have hired a company that does a decent job of creating a social presence for our company and its web presence. But the main feature I hired them for was to create and cast articlesinto the social sphere with back links to our main site. This was based on a premise that backlinks still matter. Instead the articles and posts they create are 1) posted on a separate url blog page maintained by them (but branded similar to our brand term) and 2) casts out to other social sites with back links to their 'blog-type' site, not our main site. In essence its a blog off the main url with articles/posts touting our product but linking back to the off site blog. I have requested that all the articles created monthly by them and cast out into the social sphere containe anchor text appropriate hyperlinks to our main site, not the blog type site, and they are resisting. I am willing to make a switch if the premise of creating links to my main site still holds in the SEO world. Their assertion is that it doesn't. They are getting the blog site to rank for certain key words that we also are trying to rank for and the blog site does have links to our site on their site such as an "our website" button. And they do create a lot of social activity buzz with twitter, youtube etc for our brand name. In all i like what they do except in two months they have created 305 back links to the blog and our main site has only 8. When they report they show me all the words the blog site ranks for, as if the main site doesn't exist. But wouldn't best practice still be for them to create the backlinks to our main site, not the blog and worry more about how the main site is ranking, not the cast site? Or has the SEO world changed so much that it doesn't matter. I want to be fair but I am drwaing a line in the sand on this.
Content Development | | arainey0070 -
Does content have a shelf life for link building efforts?
Do you think that content (that doesn't have a date attached) has a shelf life? Especially content that is effectively timeless such as a quiz? I've noticed in my link building efforts that most links are achieved within the first couple of weeks, and that there seems to be a point of diminishing returns. Why do you think that may be?
Content Development | | nicole.healthline0 -
Should You Allow Off-Topic Links in Guest Posts
Hi Mozzers! Suppose you accept guest posts on your blog about marketing and a guest blogger wants to use the anchor text "outdoor clothing" in their bio. Is there a risk to my blog if I allow off-topic links in guest posts? Is there a risk that Google would consider guest post links as paid and apply a penalty? Thanks!
Content Development | | Charlessipe1 -
What is the best way to remove old pages (if at all)?
Hi, I have a client who has thousands of pages on his site - 50,000+. It is a news website so most of these pages are old news articles and blog posts that receive very little traffic. We are moving to a new content management system and are debating on whether or not to keep all that old content. So far our decision is to keep the content that has gotten at least 100+ visits from Bing or Google in the last 6 months but dump everything else. This amounts to around 30,000 or so pages most of which have several links pointing to them. My question is from an SEO standpoint is that okay to do? We'd not only lose pages but links as well. Part of me thinks that in light of the Panda update getting rid of old content that is good but not great could about help out the site (we do great in the SERPs and actually got a bump in traffic after the Panda update to new articles/posts). However, we obviously don't want to cause problems and that is why I'd appreciate the thoughts and ideas on the best way to handle this major downsizing in content. Thanks!
Content Development | | Matthew_Edgar0