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.
The Benefit of Internal Backwards Links in Product Descriptions
-
We want to work out if it is beneficial to use links pointing back to categories (higher up in the structure) on our website product pages.
For example, our Aria Dress by Jadore is found through the path: Home > Bridesmaid > Full Length Bridesmaids Dresses > Aria Dress
In the product description for the Aria Dress, is it beneficial to include internal links pointing back to higher branches in the website structure .e.g. the Full Length Bridesmaids Dresses category page, the Bridesmaid category page, as well as linking back to the 'Jadore' page? Will doing this for every dress (linking back to category page), improve the SEO of these category pages?
How many internal links is too many to include on any given product description?
Is it more important to ensure a direct link to every single webpage so that they can be reached by Google, or to include links in both directions .i.e. from Home > Product Category > Product, as well as from Product > Product Category?
Thank you.
-
nailed it!
-
It's certainly beneficial to link to wherever is going to help the user navigate. However, I would be hesitant to put actual links to higher branches in this case because it's likely that the visitor path has already been there and for them to navigate away from the product page would only deter them further to completing your checkout process.
If your current site architecture (read: nav bar in this case) doesn't already link out to the category/subcategory page, then yes, it may help slightly with internal linking "juice", but it will likely be negligible, and you could/should compensate this with things like XML sitemaps anyway.
Another thing to consider would be the opportunity to cross/upsell to other products. It's fairly easy - depending on the CMS you're using - to build in a widget or some kind of functionality to help cross promote products on product pages. I mention this because it's a great alternative to giving people the option to click away from something they probably know they already want, as well as allowing you to increase your price per order by making it easier for them to add "related products" to their shopping cart.
Not knowing your exact situation, I would advise making the internal linking structure whatever is best for the path of the visitor. Make up any internal linking benefit that you think you might be missing by making sure you're XML sitemaps are in order, as well as interlinking wherever necessary in other parts of your site.
Hope that helps!
Related resources:
https://moz.com/blog/results-of-google-experimentation-only-the-first-anchor-text-counts
http://www.screenpages.com/about/articles/ecommerce-navigation
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
-
Should I disavow these links?
Hi all, I have a ski website that I am currently performing a toxic backlink audit on. I have noted that a lot of the links being flagged as toxic/spammy by the tool I am using seem to be the same/similar sites with different URLs. The sites are vaguely related to skiing (relating to helicopter travel options for travelling to ski resorts) but it is concerning me that there are so many of them and they are being flagged as so toxic.
Link Building | Mar 17, 2022, 9:06 AM | SolveWebMedia
Do you think it is worth disavowing these? Or contacting the owner to ask them to remove the link? I have included an example of some of the links below. https://www.cannes-helicopters.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://nice-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5 Slightly different site but same favicon icon:
https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://www.whitetracks-holidays.com/Helicopter_Transfers_Villars_Switzerland.htm Thanks in advance for any advice / help!0 -
Disavowing Links
I need some advice... I've noticed our link profile has increased with many comments links --- something I certainly have not pursued manually. I'm new to disavowing links. However, before I go ahead and disavow them, I'd like to ask how harmful these links are and would you recommend this is something I can do myself (relatively novice SEO) or if you'd recommend someone who could do this for a reasonable cost. In one instance, the link from this comment thread is with the anchor text, "porn"... Certainly not something we want to rank for, haha! I look forward to your advice
Link Building | Feb 12, 2020, 8:43 PM | LukeBTDT0 -
Can affiliate links benefit or hurt my seo?
I have just signed up with a company to do affiliate marketing for my site. I am now in the process of reaching out to publishers and seeing who will publish my link on their site. Is there any benefit in terms of seo for having these links, and can there be any potential downside to these links as well?
Link Building | Jun 21, 2018, 5:12 AM | whiteonlySEO0 -
Xyz links
I have a lot of backlinks ending with .xyz, around 20%, and they look very suspicious. Should I disavow these? Here are a few: yourrelicsbargains.xyz fantasticsiteinfo.xyz yourvintagelifestyle.xyz usefuldiscount4u.xyz bestdealsaction.xyz bestmemorabilialifestyle.xyz 59177.net lovecollectorsbargains.xyz
Link Building | Feb 19, 2017, 8:26 PM | moon-boots0 -
What are he benefits of getting 200+ links from DA 40+ non-relevant websites?
I have a client who has an opportunity to sponsor a prestigious national organisation. In return, they will get 200+ links from the websites of the organisation's members. Most of which are DA 40+.None of the linking sites have any relevance to my client's industry.1) How likely do you think it is that Google will view these as paid links?2) Do you feel that there is potential harm in gaining this many non-relevant links in a short time-frame?3) The client wants me to quantify the ranking benefits of gaining these links and calculate a potential ROI. If that's even possible, how would you go about that?Thanks in advance
Link Building | Mar 31, 2016, 10:45 AM | richdan2 -
Spammy links
Hi Guys, I have a case which seems to occur more often for our customers. The websites of our customers seem to receive tons of backlinks from websites all over the world (China, Russia, Ukrain, etc). It’s spam we never asked for, we didn’t buy any dodgy linkbuilding packages or anything. Do any of you guys have experience with this matter? We try to disavow the links but it takes too much time and we will never manage to disavow 100% of all links. Examples are www.keukensduitsland.nl and www.m2beveiliging.nl Hope anyone has experience and maybe even solutions for this matter. Thanks!
Link Building | Dec 22, 2015, 6:11 AM | Happy-SEO1 -
Internal Linking - Post links vs Side Bar Links behaving differently
Hi, I have a question regarding the internal linking behavior. My website is www.hindimeaning.com which is approx 3 years old. I have approx 450 posts. Now i have a widget on right sidebar "Popular posts". A widget below my posts "Related Posts". And a simple html CSS menu above the posts (I removed menu around 6 month before so currently it will not show.) I crawled my site with moz crawler (same are the result from google crawler as well) and it shows menus links as internal links. While sidebar widget "Popular posts" and "Related Posts" are not showing as internal links. If we talk theoretically what i learn till now is "every link on a page behaves as internal link". Then why the widget links are not showing as internal links. Thanks, Mahesh Kumar
Link Building | Feb 12, 2015, 6:48 AM | chaudhary04890 -
Asking dealers for links if they sell your products:
Should you ask your dealers for links back to you? For example, if you are a laminate flooring manufacturer, should you ask all your retailers to link to you? If so, how do you go about it? Emails? A form letter? Should I create a page on the site for banners and let them grab the code? Any creative ideas would help.
Link Building | Mar 4, 2012, 9:50 AM | kbloemendaal0