Self Referencing Links - Good or Bad?
-
As an agency we get quite a few of our clients come to us saying "Ooo, this company just contacted me saying they've run an SEO report on my site and we need to improve on these following things"
We had one come through the other day that had reported on something we had not seen in any others before.
They called them self-referencing links and marked it as a point of action should be taken. They had stated that 100% of the pages on our clients website had self-referencing links.
The definition of self-referencing is when there is a link on a page that is linking to the page you are currently on. So for example you're on the home page and there is a link in the nav bar at the top that says "Home" with a link to the home page, the page you are already currently on.
Is it bad practice? And if so can we do anything about it as it would seem strange from a UI point of view not to have a consistent navigation. I have not heard anything about this before but I wanted to get confirmation before going back to our client and explaining.
Thanks Mozzers!
-
Great, as we thought!
Thanks for the explanation, makes even more sense now!
-
Well said. And on that note, I wouldn't trust the SEO advice of an email spammer
-
"it would seem strange from a UI point of view not to have a consistent navigation."
You hit the nail on the head, imagine is a website like Amazon removed the link on their logo to the homepage from the homepage, some people click this on the homepage just because they're confused and if they don't see a page refresh they may be upset. It's also a LOT more work to implement this.
I would argue a consistent navigation is good, as Google likes to follow a good structure, it's just causing you potential problems, what if you're using a CMS and you're on the blog, then you go to a blog article, do you remove the blog menu link as you're within the blog? There's just no real reason I can personally see for it.
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
-
Multilingual Sitewide Links
Multilingual links in the footer section is being counted as backlink and we are getting tons of backlinks from all the 7 lingual websites. Is there a solution where we eliminate these links and still having the option to navigate to other lingual pages? vr24NAv
Technical SEO | | comfortclick0 -
Do I need a link to my sitemap?
I have a very large sitemap. I submit it to both Google and Bing, but do I need a link to it? If someone went there it would probably lock their browser. Is there any danger of not having a link if I submit it to Google and Bing?
Technical SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Are my Canonical Links set up correctly?
I have Enable Canonical Links (recommended) on my web site. However, I also have THIS checked: Enable full URL for Home Page Canonical Link (include /default.asp) Is it hurting me??? Keep getting dinged on our report card. We are using the Volusion shopping cart software/platform.
Technical SEO | | GreenFarmParts0 -
Google Links
I am assuming that the list presented by Google Webmaster tools (TRAFFIC | Links To Your Site) is the one that will actually be used by Google for indexing ? There seem to be quite a few links that there that should not be there. ie Assumed NOFOLLOW links. Am I working under an incorrect assumption that all links in webmaster tools are actually followed ?
Technical SEO | | blinkybill0 -
Removing links from another site
Hello, Some site that I have never been able to access as it is always down has over 3,000 links to my website. They disappeared the other week and our search queries dramatically improved but now they are back again in Google Webmaster and we have dropped again.I have contacted the site owner and got no response and I have also put in a removal form (though I am not sure this fits for that) and asked Google to remove as they have been duplicating our content also. It was in my pending section but has now disappeared.This links are really damaging our search and the site isnt even there. Do I have to list all 3,000 links in the link removal to Google or is there another way I can go about telling them the issue.Appreciate any help on this
Technical SEO | | luwhosjack0 -
Remove Links or 301
Howdy Guys, Our main site has been hit pretty hard by penguin and we are just wondering what steps we should now take. For the past 2 months we have been working through our back link profile removing spammy / un-natural links, we have documented everything in a spreadsheet... We recently submitted a reconsideration request to Google and they have now responded saying we still have bad links. I'm just wondering would be it easier just to 301 redirect our site to another TLD we have for our main site? Or Do we keep working through our links 1 by 1 and removing them? Has anyone had any success in 301ing? Thanks, Scott
Technical SEO | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
Link Share Matrix
Our developers have requested our "Link Share Matrix" - does anyone know what a Link Share Matrix is? Google and the Wiki haven't provided any decent results so I still don't know exactly what it is. Thanks in advance 🙂
Technical SEO | | Seaward-Group0
