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.
How is link juice split between navigation?
-
Hey All, I am trying to understand link juice as it relates to duplicate navigation
Take for example a site that has a main navigation contained in dropdowns containing 50 links (fully crawl-able and indexable), then in the footer of said page that navigation is repeated so you have a total of 100 links with the same anchor text and url. For simplicity sake will the link juice be divided among those 100 and passed to the corresponding page or does the "1st link rule" still apply and thus only half of the link juice will be passed?
What I am getting at is if there was only one navigation menu and the page was passing 50 link juice units then each of the subpages would get passed 1link juice unit right? but if the menu is duplicated than the possible link juice is divided by 100 so only .5 units are being passed through each link. However because there are two links pointing to the same page is there a net of 1 unit?
We have several sites that do this for UX reasons but I am trying to figure out how badly this could be hurting us in page sculpting and passing juice to our subpages.
Thanks for your help! Cheers.
-
Hi Keri,
thanks for the follow up. As for the specific question no I have not really found a concrete answer. Currently we have left the duplicate navigation alone and focused on more pressing updates. Sorry that I don't have more info to share.
-
Hi Joshua,
I'm following up on older unanswered questions, and wondering what you decided to do in this case. Did you change anything, or leave it as is? Do you have anything interesting to share with us that you learned?
Thanks!
-
Hey Damien, thanks for the response. Ya I had originally thought about no following one set of links but then found out what you just pointed out, that the nofollow doesn't work that way anymore. We actually have more links then that per page (that just happens to be a round number) but what I am trying to figure out is since about half of them are duplicates am I really losing anything? since they only link to about 50 unique pages are those pages being passed the same amount of juice as they would be if they were only being linked to once per page (instead of being linked to in the main nav and footer)?
-
I'd be wary of having so many links on one page. I say 100 links is a max per page but obviously I'm sure there's going to be sites out there that rank with more than that; but as a general rule...
You used to be able to add nofollow to your links and preserve your PR but I believe if you add that now the link will get no juice and you still lose some. It's more of a 'I don't sponsor this' sort of thing. Hope I explained myself okay there!
DD
-
Thanks for posting. I understand what chapter four says but it doesn't seem to answer my question. My understanding is that google only counts the first link on a page when passing link juice although it splits link juice across all of the links on a page. So according to this understanding only the navigation contained in the dropdowns at the top of the page will pass link juice, thus only half of the possible link juice is passed since the links in the footer don't pass any juice (even though they are factored in to how much juice each link passes). Is that a correct understanding? The example in the book does not discuss what happens to how link juice is calculated and passed when two links on one page point to the same subpage.
-
http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development
go to the chapter 4
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
-
Jump links?
I am using a directory plug-in that doesn't have separate urls for each profile. Is there any way to set up a link to go directly to a particular business? https://www.sacramentotop10.com/business/chamber-of-commerce/
Web Design | | julie-getonthemap0 -
Spotted Hidden Omiod Links in Footer - What do you think is Going on Here?
Hi guys, Hoping one of you have come across this before. While taking a look at the source code for a website I've recently started working on, I spotted some 'display:none' code in the footer of the page. Here's a snapshot of the code: close XMETAhead title : 404 Page Not Found | ( 39 chrs ) [http://www.omiod.com/chrome-extensions/meta-seo-inspector/info.php?meta=description&cont=404 Page Not Found.](<a href=)" title="more about description" target="_blank" class="ad_seo_link">description : 404 Page Not Found( 170 chrs )[http://www.omiod.com/chrome-extensions/meta-seo-inspector/info.php?meta=keywords&cont=404, 404 error page,](<a href=) " title="more about keywords" target="_blank" class="ad_seo_link">keywords : 404, 404 error page ( 7 items )SCRIPThttp://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.google-analytics.com">www.google-analytics.com http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js <div< a="">class="ad_seo_title">HTML5 report</div<>Doctype is not HTML5, there are no HTML5 tags, but at least no obsolete HTML tags were found. 1/5
Web Design | | ecommercebc0 -
Can external links in a menu attract a penalty?
We have some instances of external links (i.e. pointing to another domain) in site menus. Although there are legitimate reasons (e.g. linking to a news archive kept on a separate domain) I understand this can be considered bad from a usability perspective. This begs the question - is this bad for SEO? With the recent panda changes we've seen certain issues which were previously "only" about usability attract SEO penalties, but I can't find any references to this example. Anyone have thoughts / experience?
Web Design | | SOS_Children0 -
Does Google follow links inside a <noscript>tag?</noscript>
I'm looking at making an embedable calculator and asking users to embed it to their website. I had the idea of using javascript to include the calculator which would also conatain a text link back to my site in order to gain some back links. If it's possible Google won't see the link (as they may not execute the javascript), is it safe to place the link in the <noscript>tag? If so, Will it be indexed and will Page Rank be passed?</span></p> <p>Thanks in advance for your answers. </p> <p>Anthony</p> <p><span style="color: #5e5e5e;"><br /></span></p></noscript>
Web Design | | BallyhooLtd0 -
Footer Links Good or bad?
Hi Can anyone answer this question confidently, I know Google is moving away from lots of links within the footer. However we specialise in websites for the travel industry and having a link to all the areas at the footer can be quite handy. Our websites complete this automatically. Here is an example where due to design of the site the links don't quite fit well, so we need to change anyway. But before completing the work I wondered if there was a better way to do this. http://www.dreamvillasitaly.com/ Many thanks Andy
Web Design | | iprosoftware0 -
Over Optimization & Footer Links for Crediting Web Design to a Company
With the recent updates to the algorithm having to do with link networks and over optimization it has got me to thinking about the footer links we add to each site that we build and do web design for linking back to ours. I could certainly see how Google could make the assumption that these are all on the same server, pointing back to one main site, and penalize us for that. Should we no=follow these links? They may say something like, "Website Designed By: Company Name". They do provide a valuable source to some extent of traffic to the site from people interested in our designs. Any thoughts?
Web Design | | JoshGill270 -
How to make Address Text Clickable for Google Map Link for Mobile Device
How do I make the address text on the site a clickable link for mobile devices?
Web Design | | bozzie3110 -
How would restructuring the navigation of my website affect my rankings?
I want to restructure the navigation of my website for a few reasons: 1. It isn't intuitive/clear to the user 2. It is way too big, it has too many links and thus causes the number of links on many pages to be >100. 3. I want to get rid of file extensions as part of the URLs (.html, .php) 4. I want to achieve a "tree"-like navigation system, with categories, subcategories and so on. In the process of cleaning up my website, I had to 301 redirect a lot of duplicate pages, fix broken links, etc. I have a lot of 301 redirects already, and in the process of restructuring the navigation of my website I know I'm going to get more. Will the addition of new 301 redirects have an effect on my rankings? (I'm basically going to be changing all of the URLs) What kind of SEO effect will restructuring the navigation at the top of the page (reducing the # of links on the main menu) have on my site? What is the best strategy to implement in this situation?
Web Design | | deuce1s0
