Flow of internal link equity
-
I've recently come across this:
A site changes the URL of one internal page to something more search friendly, and 301's the old to the new as you would expect.
They don't change the link on the homepage in the navigation. Instead they keep it to the old URL so they go through the 301 to get to the page even though it's internal.
They say if they change the URL it will reset the internal flow of link equity to that page.
I've not come across this before and so am not sure what to think. I mean I can see what they're saying but I would have though that it being internal would mean it's different and that the flow to internal pages would just kind of resume as-was quite soon afterwards.
Any views?
-
Steve... "P" for Pope too!
-
Hehe I felt the need to go check out the pope's new site from that, nice amount of links as one would expect but some awful on-site... the whole thing is an image, and then tables instead of CSS on other pages... and no analytics
-
...and refuse to give it upper-case on principle
Bad attitude... you will never get a link from the Pope's new site until you start using "G".
-
"Ask them if they ever hunt rabbits.
Then ask if they try to kill them by shooting straight at them or if they try to hit them with a ricochet. :-)"
EGOL, it may get me into trouble but I swear to god I am actually going to do that... I'm going to ask them that exactly how you've said it because I just won't be able to resist it now lol.
Thanks... for the burst of laughter and for the answer I needed!
P.S. All Viewers: Before anybody points it out, I know god is meant to have a capital G but I'm an anti-theist and refuse to give it upper-case on principle
(I get corrected on that purposeful typo a lot so thought I'd nip it in the bud this time). -
They don't change the link on the homepage in the navigation. Instead they keep it to the old URL so they go through the 301 to get to the page even though it's internal.
Ask them if they ever hunt rabbits.
Then ask if they try to kill them by shooting straight at them or if they try to hit them with a ricochet.
They say if they change the URL it will reset the internal flow of link equity to that page.
If you have trouble extracting them from this thinking then I don't think that they are ready for your services. You will be pulling teeth through every step of the job.
-
Yeah that's pretty much what I was thinking but then could they be right? I mean there doesn't seem to be any data anywhere to show if it does have an affect on the linked-to page (however minimal). Somebody somewhere must have tested it.
It does make sense to keep it seen as a moved page and not a new one to keep whatever trust it's built up but surely as an internal page, any new page that replaces it wouldn't take long to pull that same trust back in anyway (this is based on the fact that it's not exactly got a lot of equity anyway).
-
Yep, that sounds like a load of old cobblers to me. Surely, you change a page, you update your navigation?
"reset the internal flow of link equity?" - really? So, are they implying that if they link to the new page in the navigation, it will somehow affect the ranking of said page. But if they use the 301 it will be fine?
Sounds like someone not really getting what is going on here behind the scenes. I can only imagine that they want googlebot to crawl that link to realise the page name has been updated and have somehow extrapolated this from that train of thought with the intention of making sure it is seen as a moved page rather than a new one.
Marcus
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 we optimise our internal links?
Hi again, We recently had a technical search audit done by a specialist agency and they discovered a number of internal links that caused redirects to happen. The agency has recommended we update all of these links to link directly to the destination so we don't lose out on link equity. We'd just like to know if you think this would be a worthwhile use of our time. Our web team seem to think that returning a 301 to a crawler means that the crawler will stop indexing the original URL and instead index the redirected destination? Thanks all. Clair
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iescape2 -
'Nofollow' footer links from another site, are they 'bad' links?
Hi everyone,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | romanbond
one of my sites has about 1000 'nofollow' links from the footer of another of my sites. Are these in any way hurtful? Any help appreciated..0 -
Linking and non-linking root domains
Hi, Is there any affect on SEO based on the ratio of linking root domains to non-linking root domains and if so what is the affect? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | halloranc0 -
Internal Linking from Menu or body text or both with exact match keyword?
I used to have my menu link to every page with my exact match keywords. I am a Magician and have pages for each county / town so I had a link to /magician-hampshire with the anchor text Magician Hampshire in the menu. I recently had my website updated and the developer told me this was very spammy have a menu that said Magician Hampshire, Magician Surrey, Magician Berkshire He suggested that I should now have a menu structure that says Areas Covered>Hampshire - Surrey - Berkshire etc.Google will know my website is about a magician and relate the two together. Is this correct or should I revert my menu back to anchor text of Magician (County) I am running wordpress and he said the title attribute can say Magician Hampshire but the Visible text is for the user and not Google. I also use the technique of doing site:rogerlapin.co.uk magician hampshire and then seeing the top 10 pages google has for me and placing a text link from each of these pages in the body text. When doing link analysis I now see I have two links to each page but understand that google will only account for the first one (from the menu) Questions:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rnperki
Should I link to every main page from the Menu with the exact anchor text?
Does google only take into account the first link to a page it discovers?
Will it associate a link to a page with just the text of the county (Berkshire) to be related to Magicians in Berkshire as that is what the page is about? A few years ago I used to have at the bottom of each page Magician Hampshire | Magician Surrey | Magician Berkshire | Magician Sussex links - and to date a a lot of other Magicians employ this same technique. I was told google would slap them for it but so far it has not and it seems to be working for them. Many Thanks Roger http://www.rogerlapin.co.uk0 -
How can i stop such links being indexed
Hi, How can i stop such links being indexed The first link is what i want to stop indexed. We have 1,000's of people writing articles and the below URl shows how many articles each did http://www.somename.com/article/15633 But this is the URl which shows the exact articlehttp://www.Somename.com/article/step-step-installation-ibm-lotus-notesAs both start as thishttp://www.Somename.com/article/How can i set noindex? Should we set for each URL manually one by oneThanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Link Building for E-Commerce
Hi, Our on page optimization, albeit for a few dupe content issues, is ok - We have good keyword rich URL's, Titles, H1's and unique product descriptions. So now I want to look at building links that will boost our DA and PA's. We have over 2000 products on the store and around 130 categories/subcategories -and I would appreciate any views on where to start - My initial view is to get backlinks from the relevant manufacturer websites to the "shop by brand" page on our site related to these manufacturers - What other strategies should I look at? Thanks, Ben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
Internal anchor text
Hi, I'm not sure what approach I should be using with my internal anchor text. Ideally I would like to rank well for about 3 keyword variations, so what I am wondering is is this achievable through judicious use of onsite anchor text? What I'm trying to establish is whether I should focus on just one term throughout and never vary? Or, should I go for a variety of all 3 keywords? Should I go for a wide variety of semantically similar phrases. Where are the most important places for this anchor text?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cornwall
E.g. home page, main nav, text links within articles? Should I try and use the full term in my navigation. E.g. instead of using
Pink | Blue | Green
should I go for
Pink widgets | Blue widgets | Green widgets Any suggestions, pointers to useful articles would be very much appreciated. TIA,
Chris0 -
Link Request Email on Site`s Link Pages
Hello I have assembled a list of web-sites that have "Links" section that has a list of persons` favorite tools. Those pages have a link to my competitor. I know my tool is just as good if not better and want to request a link. I`m thinking of sending an email asking for a link and offering a small amount of money for it. Questions: A) How much should I offer? Should I offer anything at all B) Is there an email style that someone can suggest that has been tested and proven to work for this type of situtation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hellopotap0