Web Design - Text links better than drop down menus?
-
Hello
So with reading a blog post by Bruce Clay - http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/seo-friendly-web-design/
It reads that it Is best for seo to use text links instead of drop down menus.
So I just wanted to ask you opinion.
-
Hi,
If you configure your drop-down menus for SEO by using the correct CSS technique (i.e. the links appear on the page but are activated with a hover, which I am sure you're referring to), this is fine for SEO purposes. Best to avoid hundreds and hundreds of links in drop-down menus (they can get cumbersome and bad for usability, and dilute the passed authority). If it's best for usability to have a huge drop-down but link numbers are concern, some sites use JavaScript for links that aren't important for SEO on "mega menus".
As a basic rule though, you will not suffer by having some navigational links in CSS-led drop downs.
-
Thank you for your valuable insights.
I have a lot to learn
-
If you're thinking strictly about how 'link juice' flows through a page, then yes - static links are the way to go. But you also have to ask yourself how easy it is for someone to find and click the links. The site still has to be usable. So yes, static text links are generally best - but one can still mess that up as well.
The page you mentioned has some pretty good points regarding basic UI/UX. If you do static links properly, more or less what was discussed in the article, you'll reduce page rank fragmentation and present a better experience. What's not to like?
If you're designing for multiple devices, functionality that calls for navigational hover actions isn't the best idea. So there's another point against drop down navigation. Also, if you look at this site, you'll notice there isn't a whole lot of drop down happening until you get to search functionality and tools.
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
-
After HTTPS upgrade, should I change all internal links, or a general 301 redirect is better?
I recently upgraded to https. Of course most internal links of my old posts are still http. So I set up a 301 redirect in order to make the old link works. In terms od SEO this is good or it is better to update all the internal links to https, manually? In that case can I do it in batch with a search/replace command in the phmyadmin database? any other suggested method? thank you
On-Page Optimization | | micvitale0 -
400 error - Phone number link.
I am getting 400 errors for all my pages that have a phone number with a link to Skype etc on click, is this a genuine issue or am I ok? How do I resolve this? Any bright ideas, here is an example of the issue - http://www.arts1.co.uk/5-reasons-to-choose-arts1 There are pages of these and I am not sure what to do? Many Thanks James Grimsey
On-Page Optimization | | jamesgrimsey0 -
On Site Problem Caused Rankings To Drop?
I'm getting to the bottom of why my site dropped rankings on the 9th March. I noticed that in google there is a cached version of my site on 9th March at 8.37am which is when my rankings dissapeared. Presumably this is when google last crawled my site? I guess this means that google found something on the home page or on the site that it didn't like? I wonder if anyone can take a look and let me know if there's anything obvious. Could it be a duplicate content penalty as I have lots of categories pulling content from the same posts?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
Page Title - What is better?
Hi SEO Heads, I have another question if someone would be so kind in answering What page title of the 2 below is better for SEO (i) Chocolate Cake|Chocolate Cake Recipe|Xmas Cake or (ii) Chocolate Cake | Chocolate Cake Recipe | Xmas Cake As you can see (ii) Page Title has a space before and after the | (vertical bar) I know the second page title looks better to human eyes but on some pages I had to forego the space so i could fit my keywords in the page title. is this a good idea? Can anyone help me? Cheers Aidan
On-Page Optimization | | aidanlawlor0 -
Too Many Links On Internal Search Pages
A client has a too many link warning being flagged in SEOmoz. The problem is that most of the pages on the site are lists of tickets for an event etc. Is there a good way to fix the site from having too many links on pages like this http://www.easyseat.com/venue/yankee-stadium-tickets-for-sale.aspx when the user experience requires a long list of links so people can find an event?
On-Page Optimization | | TimFlint0 -
Change Homepage internal Link from Image to Targeted Anchor Text -- Spam??
I am in the following situation: 1. Homepage is designed to target one main keyword. 2. All current pages link to the homepage with the image/logo, nowhere on the site do we link to the homepage with the target keyword. 3. It is an established page (Moz rank of 58) If I suddenly added text above and made the homepage link targeted anchor text, would Google consider this spam? We are ranked #13 in Google and our looking for ways to move up, but I do not want to risk any type of Google penalty.
On-Page Optimization | | MattAaron0 -
More than 100 internal links from a page
Hi, we have been developing our new site and improving the internal linking for 2 reasons, 1 to improve spidering and 2 to up sell more to customers. The error reports from SEOMoz are showing our biggest problem is too many internal links from 2000+ pages. How much of an impact does it have by having say 180 internal links compared to say 99 on a page? Our website has been moving up the SERPs so should i worry about it or should I ignore the warnings and continue with the menu system and internal linking we have in place already? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | PottyScotty0 -
Keyword text block on homepage - keep or do away with?
One of my sites is getting a major refresh on the home page, which is good and bad. The legacy homepage was very long, and had a lot of text (thousands+ of words) in the body, with about 450+ links (internal/external) on the page. A ton of graphics, etc etc. Yuck. The revamped homepage is much improved. Very short, visual, fast, and SEO optimized. It's more of launching pad into the rest of the site. But, the text in the body is much less, perhaps a 100 words or so. The worry is that with so little text, matching the target kw count will appear as stuffing. The 'solution' was to include a visible text box at the bottom of the page, with about 300 words, basically what would typically appear in an 'about' section of a site. But instead, its located on the bottom of the homepage to beef up the pages content, and to avoid looking too 'stuffed'. Visually, its unattractive IMHO and while the text is good and informative, its under the fold and will likely not change that much going forward. This all seems very 10 years ago to me, but I'd like a second opinion. Is this box of text a good strategy?
On-Page Optimization | | EricPacifico0