Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your reputation grow with Reviews AI
      Moz Local

      Let your reputation grow with Reviews AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Impact of removing category sidebar with keywords?

    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.

    Impact of removing category sidebar with keywords?

    On-Page Optimization
    2
    2
    1654
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • insideARM
      insideARM last edited by

      Our site (a niche financial publication: insideARM.com) requires some more room in the sidebar. We're considering removing the categories (we call them topics) sidebar block, or cutting down the number of items displayed within it.

      My concern is that we'd be removing a direct link to landing pages for important keyword terms from our most powerful page (the index). Sure, we have the terms listed in the footer, but I am worried that the position change will lower the value of the links. Our users don't really use these links for navigational purposes, which is why it comes up as a potential removed item.

      Am I wrong to worry about this? Would we be crippling our category pages by doing this?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • AlanBleiweiss
        AlanBleiweiss last edited by

        There's no one right answer here.  So many factors to consider.

        1. Real Word Testing

        For example, have you ever done heat maps or click tracking with a solution like CrazyEgg?  I ask because it could turn out to be that the "recent free reports" box gets hardly enough clicks to warrant it's being kept as compared to the "Browse Topics" links.

        2. Existing On Page Optimization

        From a different perspective, You've only got "fair" optimization on the individual topic landing pages.  For example, when I go to the link for the Debt Collection topic, it sends me to the url http://www.insidearm.com/browse-topics/?topicid=2515

        When I look at this page I see the following flaws in your page level SEO:

        You've got a weak page Title

        No URL optimization

        The overall keyword saturation across the entire page (including header area, main content area,k sidebar and footer areas causes significant dilution.

        3.Section Level Sub-Navigation

        When I'm in this section, the sub-category links do show up within the sidebar Topic link area for this section, yet the whole Topic nav box is way below the fold, which already causes a user experience problem.  Taking the further action of removing that box entirely would cause even more topical and user confusion.

        4. Crawlability

        At the code level, the page I reviewed has 385 links.  (65 of these are purely pointing to archives, and they're only at the code level, not seen by visitors, yet because they're there, search indexing crawlers do see them).  With so many links on a page, it's quite possible that search engines are not crawling your site as efficiently as they could be, which itself could be further harming your sites overall SEO in a way that needs to be factored when deciding which links on a page should or shouldn't be removed.

        5.Perceived Duplicate Content Factor

        All those links in the sidebar and footer - for the most part they're the same across the entire site correct?  If so, that's causing not only a topical dilution issue, it's also contributing to weakness in perceived unique page level content.

        6.Sectional Navigation

        SEO best practices DO call for a section level sub-navigation system up top or on the sidebar, though it should at least mostly be limited to links within that section.


        As you can see there are many factors to consider before just randomly ripping out one thing because you want the visual space for something else you or someone else in the organization perceives to be important.  It's not something to take lightly because of that very impact you express concern over.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
        • 1 / 1
        • First post
          Last post

        Got a burning SEO question?

        Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


        Start my free trial


        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.

        • See all categories

        Related Questions

        • xtrapsp

          Should posts show in multiple categories?

          seo wordpress

          Hi all, For context, I'm trying to Silo my content more efficiently. I've just moved all content into their own SILO'd categories and removed them from duplicate categories. As such, posts now sit only in 1 category. My question here is: Should my posts be showing in both the parent category and its sub category or just the sub-category? I've currently got this only showing in the sub-categories it's relevant to. For example:
          Post name: Shimano Fishing Rod Review
          Parent Category: Fishing Rods
          Sub Category: Shimano And the post only shows inside the Shimano Category

          On-Page Optimization | | xtrapsp
          0
        • Mosaj

          Meta keywords

          should every site have meta keywords or is this not used anymore? I don't use yoast and prefer rank math but there is nowhere to insert it. when I look at moz bar it shows meta keywords as a field so maybe it is important...

          On-Page Optimization | | Mosaj
          0
        • SteveRDM

          Schema.org Article, itemprop keyword, what is it?

          I've wanted to know the answer to this for a couple of years now and haven't found anyone ever talking about it. So here goes ... For schema.org markup on articles, http://schema.org/Article there's an itemprop for keywords: http://schema.org/keywords keywords
          Canonical URL: http://schema.org/keywords
          Keywords or tags used to describe this content. Multiple entries in a keywords list are typically delimited by commas. What's that do? Like if I use that markup with an article I publish on my site, will that get those words given that property keyword value? Will that affect SEO value? Do those replace what metatag keywords used to be? Or are they just like what metatag keywords are these days, no real value?

          On-Page Optimization | | SteveRDM
          0
        • Mike.Bean

          Keyword Stuffing Question

          Say your on a e-commerce category page "Shirts" every lower level category has "shirts" in it such as: T-shirt, long sleeve shirt, sweat shirt, v-neck shirt, and so on. Is this page going to be penalized in google for the keyword "shirts" just because it is in the title and on the page a thousand times because i'm targetting words like "long sleeve shirt? and if it is, will the "long sleeve shirt" keyword be negatively affected as well? Answer much appreciated,
          Thanks in advance.

          On-Page Optimization | | Mike.Bean
          0
        • ProjectLabs

          Should you have two separate pages for synonym keywords?

          Suppose that you want to rank for two keyword phrases that mean the same thing but are slightly different in spelling. When should you put both keyword phrases on one page versus two pages? What are the pros and cons?

          On-Page Optimization | | ProjectLabs
          0
        • timscullin

          Target keywords on homepage or sub page?

          Is it better to target main keywords on a site's homepage, or in a sub page. I would usually assume the homepage, but if the domain for the homepage doesn't include the keyword is it better to have a sub page with an exact match URL? For example we target the keyword "abc123" Is it better to optimise the homepage: brandname.com Or create a page to target it: brandname.com/abc123/ And leave the homepage to target brand keywords, but link to the "abc123" page. Whats the best option?

          On-Page Optimization | | timscullin
          0
        • KMack

          Wordpress: Should I NO INDEX Categories & Archives Pages?

          I am new to SEOmoz & trying to work my way through the ca-trillion errors that have been found on my site, but for each one I want to ensure that I am helping rather than harming my site. The tool has (as a "notice") said that my category pages & Archives are NO-INDEX, is this how these pages should be dealt with? In addition, the crawler has also (as a "warning error) discovered that my categories, and Archives do not have a meta description..is this of great importance for non indexed pages of this type? Thanks so much to the SEOmoz forum members, you have so far been of invaluable help to me.

          On-Page Optimization | | KMack
          2
        • drewschmaltz

          Category Pages with Sub-Categories

          The image will explain it all...  Each category page starts on the subject of the first sub-category page.  This happens twice (well actually 3 times since this section of the site is called showroom and it starts on the tab mowers). Is this a terrible approach?  If so, how could a site like this be better navigation-ally organized. cat-subcat.png

          On-Page Optimization | | drewschmaltz
          0

        Get started with Moz Pro!

        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

        Start my free trial
        Products
        • Moz Pro
        • Moz Local
        • Moz API
        • Moz Data
        • STAT
        • Product Updates
        Moz Solutions
        • SMB Solutions
        • Agency Solutions
        • Enterprise Solutions
        • Digital Marketers
        Free SEO Tools
        • Domain Authority Checker
        • Link Explorer
        • Keyword Explorer
        • Competitive Research
        • Brand Authority Checker
        • Local Citation Checker
        • MozBar Extension
        • MozCast
        Resources
        • Blog
        • SEO Learning Center
        • Help Hub
        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
        • How-to Guides
        • Moz Academy
        • API Docs
        About Moz
        • About
        • Team
        • Careers
        • Contact
        Why Moz
        • Case Studies
        • Testimonials
        Get Involved
        • Become an Affiliate
        • MozCon
        • Webinars
        • Practical Marketer Series
        • MozPod
        Connect with us

        Contact the Help team

        Join our newsletter
        Moz logo
        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
        • Accessibility
        • Terms of Use
        • Privacy

        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.