Too many on page links - created by filters
-
I have an ecommerce site and SEOmoz "Crawl Diagnostics Summary" points out that I have too many hyperlinks on most of my pages.
The most recent thing I've done that could the culprit is the creation of number product filters. Each filter I put on the page is creating a hyperlink off that page. As an example, there's a filter available for manufacturers. Under that, there are 8 new filter links, thus new hyperlinks. On one category there are 60 new links created because of filters.
I feel like these filters have made the user experience on the site better BUT has dramatically increased the number of outbound links off the page. I know keeping it to under 100 is a rule-of-thumb but at the same time there must be some validity to trying to limit them.
Do you have any recommendation on how I can "have my cake and eat it too?"
Thanks for any help!
-
Hi Jake,
Thanks for the question.
First off, I highly recommend reading this article by Dr. Pete: How Many Links are Too Many? (he get's asked this question a lot!)
Short answer: over 100 links isn't necessarily bad. If you're consolidating those links via rel=canonical Google is likely doing this in their crawl, and therefor reducing the crawling of every single URL in order to save bandwidth. If those pages rel canonical to each other, you may not have a problem. I would recommend checking your parameter settings in Google Webmaster Tools, just to be safe.
That said, I've often found that reducing the number of links on a page often improves user experience. There's a certain psychology around limiting choices that makes decisions easier for users. I'm not saying this is right for your situation, but it's always best to question your assumptions.
Cheers.
-
Hi Irving,
First, thanks for your comments. No, I am using a custom, in house CMS, not Magento.
My terminology was mistaken. I was calling these outbound links but SEOMoz is basically labeling them in a warning label:
" Issue: Too Many On-Page Links" and that I need to limit them to 100 or less.
-I do have canonical tags setup for each of these filter pages but are you saying I also need to handle that inside WMTs also?
-Although these links are hyperlinks to internal pages, in the sense they are outbound relative to the specific page but point to Dynamically created pages one the same site, should I not worry about them? I just cannot think of "above the board" way to show these to the user but not have them hurt me from the big G's perspective.
I have a quick capture attached:
Thanks,
Jason -
you're using magento i take it
by outbound link you mean links to another website? if you don't mean that then it's ok - the filter URLs are parameters being appended so you need to address them in the parameter handling section of WMT to tell Google not to index them as individual pages or you will be creating a duplicate content issue.
add canonical tags too, to tell Google only index the main page, not the appended filter URLs
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
-
Homepage canonical url with splash or not with splash? All other links are without but logo links with splash
Hello, There is so much contradicting information about the homepage canonical URL. Many websites have all the links without the trailing splash but their homepage URL still contains the splash. Now Moz is an example with this. Their urls don't have the splash, and their canonical does not have the splash. Why is it so and why so much different ways people have it?
On-Page Optimization | | advertisingcloud0 -
Nofollow links to own website pages
To preserve link juice should I "nofollow" links to about us and contact us pages that appear at the top of our navigation? I read this article - but I am not familiar with the authenticity: http://www.eminentseo.com/blog/navigation-menu-optimization-best-practices/ Thanks Mike
On-Page Optimization | | henandstag0 -
Home page and category page target same keyword
Hi there, Several of our websites have a common problem - our main target keyword for the homepage is also the name of a product category we have within the website. There are seemingly two solutions to this problem, both of which not ideal: Do not target the keyword with the homepage. However, the homepage has the most authority and is our best shot at getting ranked for the main keyword. Reword and "de-optimise" the category page, so it doesn't target the keyword. This doesn't work well from UX point of view as the category needs to describe what it is and enable visitors to navigate to it. Anybody else gone through a similar conundrum? How did you end up going about it? Thanks Julian
On-Page Optimization | | tprg0 -
Opinions please on Duplicate page titles & too many on-page links warnings.-
Hello folks, I'm a total SEO newbe but totally enjoying
On-Page Optimization | | CSC
using SEOmoz to learn more. We have ecommerce sites and the 1st crawl flags – as appears typical too many on-page links. We display up to 20 products (each with three links!)
and I’m trying to push to have fewer but meeting resistance from colleagues.
We have links duplicated all over the site believing it eases navigation. My question is just how critical is the number of products displayed
and the resulting volume of links to SEO results? Also we currently have collections of products displayed
across several pages which of course have the same page title and this is flagged
as a duplication error. I wonder if product auto-scrolling help as this means only a certain number of products are displayed at one time on one page thus reducing links and the need for duplicate page titles? My superiors are resisting change (perhaps nervous of spoiling
what already works) and I need to know where to direct my persuasive powers! Many thanks in anticipation, Spence0 -
Internal Linking - Same page
Is there any benefit in internally linking back to the same page? I have no other relevant pages in the site I can link to so wondering if it's worthwhile to use anchor text to link back to the same page?
On-Page Optimization | | Will_Craig0 -
Too many links
Hello, sorry question 2! I run the report it says we have 120 links roughly per page. I know this is bad however I have question about an oscommerce site. I identified some links that can be deleted for example Product picture is a link then the title and then its says details (so I can delete the details and that should save about 15 links) Now I really can only delete the breadcrumb for example car>>ford>>spareparts>>engine If I delete the breadcrumb I would lose four links would you say thats a good idea? or leave the breadcrumb due to the seo benefits. Many thanks for your help. Sonja
On-Page Optimization | | reallyitsme0 -
To many links on a single page Error
I've seen it a few times where you should have less then 100 links per page to help crawling unless your a massively authoritative website. But what happens when your a large ecommerce website with categories and sub categories, you could have a category called 'computers' with a drop down list containing lots of sub cat links. Whats the solution to this? Cheers
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper1 -
Can I have a strong brand category page and a strong product page?
It seems Google base and other Comparison Shopping Engines like to see the brand in the product name. But, on my category page for that brand, website optimizer tells me including the brand name with each product is cannabilizes links. For example; I have a page for jewelerABC with 20 pieces of jewelry listed as well as original content about jewelerABC. I do not currently name these products as xyz by jewelerABC. This page comes up nicely in the serps. But in Google base The top listings for jewelry by jewelerABC seem to have every product named xyz by jewelerABC or JewelerABC xyzs. What is the best way to optimize.for both? Stephen
On-Page Optimization | | stephenfishman0