Best SEO Practices for Top-Level Navigation Structure
-
OK - First of all, thank you to those of you who view and take the time to answer our question.
We are currently in the middle of re-designing our golf packages website, and we're trying to decide the best way to structure our Main Navigation for maximum SEO benefit while keeping user experience in mind.
The top key phrases we are currently targeting:
1) Myrtle Beach Golf 2) Myrtle Beach Golf Packages
You can find the current navigation structure we have come up with here:
http://www.myrtlebeachsitemasters.com/index2.html
So our question is this:
We have subdivisions of: Golf Packages, Accommodations, Golf Courses
Is it in our best interest to:
A) Get rid of the subdivisions and consolidate them to one page?
or
B) Simply "NoFollow" the subdivisions within the Main Navigation?
We are concerned about the subdivisons for 2 reasons:
-
Too many internal links in Main Navigation
-
The "first link only" rule with Google affecting our additional internal links on existing pages.
THANK YOU again to those of you who take the time to answer this question. We really appreciate any clarification on this issue.
-
-
Thanks for the follow up. I do remember reading about page rank sculpting and that change. Good stuff! I appreciate the replies Adam.
-
"If we no-follow the subnavs, will this not bring more juice to the main nav link?"
No, it will not. Google made this change awhile back - last year, I think.
"it only says "Golf Courses", does this not ruin any and ALL links on ANY other page that may say "Myrtle Beach Golf Courses" that point to that page"
OK, I understand now - you were asking regarding other links on the page, not the submenus per se! Hmmm, I do not know if nofollowing the link would fix that or not. Perhaps someone who has done a test in this area will chime in. -
Thank you for the reply. At the moment we have a the MAIN link on the nav for CONDOS, then the subnavs are North Myrtle, Myrtle, and South Myrtle. If we no-follow the subnavs, will this not bring more juice to the main nav link?
Regarding the "First Link Only" rule. Because the main navigation usually does not have the required keywords, such as "Myrtle Beach Golf Courses", instead it only says "Golf Courses", does this not ruin any and ALL links on ANY other page that may say "Myrtle Beach Golf Courses" that point to that page. Which is a more keyword rich target link? Do we even WANT the less keyword targeted link in the main navigation to have any juice? Hence, should they be no-followed, and then use more highly targeted keywords in other places to link to that page?
Hope that makes sense.
-
"Is it in our best interest to: A) Get rid of the subdivisions and consolidate them to one page? or B) Simply "NoFollow" the subdivisions within the Main Navigation?"
From my perspective, probably neither. I see possible user and SEO benefit, for example, to having separate pages for North Myrtle Beach Condos and Myrtle Beach Condos, etc. Nofollowing the links will not flow any more link juice to the other links, so would not be of any help.
If each link is linking to a different page with different anchor text, how does the "first link only" rule apply?
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
-
CDN for SEO (or not)?
Does CDN impact on SEO or not? There seems conflicting ideas as to whether they impact positively or negatively, I realise that if the page loads quicker this is a good thing for SEO and usability of course. Does Google see CDN as just cheating and a get-around for not doing the work from the ground up and using good hosting etc? Do you have any direct experience? All constructive input much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman101 -
95% of organic traffic lands in my homepage, despite having a 250 page website with a "seo optimized" hierarchical structure. Any suggestion as to what might be happening?
Challenging issue All the "usual suspects" have been discarded: all pages included in google index, no google penalties, metas optimized, kw's segregated by pages/cluster of pages to avoid cannibalization... BUT, we know we are missing something website is www.e-florex.com and is an e-commerce site based on magento Any ideas you might think are worth exploring? Thanks in advance for your help Juan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | juanmarn0 -
Url structure of a blog
We are trying to work out what the best structure for our blog is as we want each page to rank as highly as possible, we were looking at a flat structure similar to http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/ where every posts is after the blog/ but not in category's although the viewers can look in different category's from the top buttons on the page- photoshop - icons etc or we where going to go for the structured way- blog/photoshop/blog-post.html the only problem is that we will end up 4 deep at least with this and at least 80 characters in the url. any help would be appreciated. Thanks Shaun
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
What is the best practice to optimize page content with strong tags?
For example, if I have a sub page dedicated to the keyword "Houston Leather Furniture" is it best practice to bold ONLY the exact match keyword? Or should ONLY the words from the keyword (so 'Houston' 'Leather' and 'Furniture') Is there a rule to how many times it should be done before its over-optimization? I appreciate any information as I want to do the BEST possible practice when it comes to this topic. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MonsterWeb280 -
Redirection - Seo trick?
Hi, After analyzing the site I found several Redirections of exact match domains. With different domain name extensions. Is Seo trick? Is the second website which i fond that is using this technique. Can anyone gives more details? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nyanainc0 -
SEO Provider
At the risk of opening the flood gates, I'm posting this in hopes of finding a SEO provider on this site. I'm currently a member, and have learned a lot through this site, but I'm still having issues ranking higher. Because of this, I have come to the conclusion that I need a dedicated SEO company/professional who can help our company reach the next level. I'm open to suggestions of companies that you have used, or please feel free to throw your hat into the ring. Thanks in advance! AW
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheCTC0 -
SEO for a plumber?
Hello, How does a small, local business win at SEO (without abusing directories, articles, and paid links)? It seems that everyone is saying "create unique content", but that just doesn't seem realistic for a small plumber in a big metro area. One might suggest coming up with helpful articles about plumbing tips, etc., but there are thousands of spun articles on article directories already. On page optimization is in place, we are listed in the main directories, we've asked the people we know to link to us, and we are engaged in social media. What would you recommend next? Thanks, Will
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WillWatrous0 -
What's your best hidden SEO secret?
Don't take that question too serious but all answers are welcome 😉 Answer to all:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | petrakraft
"Gentlemen, I see you did you best - at least I hope so! But after all I suppose I am stuck here to go on reading the SEOmoz blog if I can't sqeeze more secrets from you!9