Why would Open Site Explorer say some internal links are images when in the source code they're text?
-
Hi, All!
I was looking at OSE for one of my client's site's pages, and I saw that all internal links were said to be images. I was pretty sure their menu was CSS, and all the links were text. So I did "fetch as Googlebot" and looked in the resultant code of one of the homepage to see the main navigation bar. The navigation link for one of those pages looked like this:
`onmouseover="doMenu2on(this);">[](http://www.mysite.com/solution_sub.asp?ID=8)` [``` <code>![](images/arrow6.gif)Anchor Text Here</code> ```](http://www.mysite.com/solution_sub.asp?ID=8) ``` The nav link for a page that does show internal anchor text in OSE looks like this:
onmouseover="doMenu2on(this);">[](http://www.mysite.com/solution.asp?ID=5)
[```
<code>Anchor Text Here</code>So there is an image in the link (it's the little arrow before the text to indicate a sub-category), but the anchor text comes right after it. Is Linkscape (and therefore potentially Google) seeing them as two different links to the same page and only counting the first? But it's all wrapped within the same <a></a>tags.
Any ideas on if this is a bug in Linkscape, or a real issue, and what should be done? Thanks!
Aviva``
-
Thanks for the interest, Keri. It was a few weeks ago, so it's hard to remember now. I think GWT did mention that anchor text - but I'm not 100% certain. Either way, I asked the webmaster to add alt text to the arrows for each menu item, so we'll see what happens. Aviva
-
Aviva, were you able to see these links in Google Webmaster Tools? What did they say?
-
I cant say how google will; see it, but i assume you ae correct, it will see it as a image link. i would either move the image to outside the link, or use alt text
dont waste the chance for link text.
go WMT and see if the link text is in the list of link text (links to your site)
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
-
'Too many on-page links': doesn't add up...
Hi All, I'm fairly new to the site, have had a full site crawl and am somewhat confused by a large number of pages (82) reported as showing 'too many on page links'. Mine is a new e-commerce site selling a project management methodology. I have about 80 pages which describe individual templates and contain internal links to additional, related content on the site. The crawl warnings define too many on page links as roughly 100 "on any given page" yet almost none of the pages flagged contain more than 20-30 on links. Any thoughts and ideas about (a) the degree to which this will aeffect my ranking in practice and (b) how to resolve it gratefully received! Thanks in advance, Felix
Moz Pro | | RomanCat0 -
How come the linking root domains doesn't download to the cvs when I try to create a "Top Pages" report?
How come the linking root domains tab doesn't download to the cvs when I try to create a "Top Pages" report?
Moz Pro | | mrmworldwidesearch0 -
I'm looking for good outbound link profiling tool...
Hello all, Just a brief question... does anybody know of a good link profiling tool which will give me a list of URLs that are linked to from a specific website? Essentially, I'm looking for the polar opposite of OpenSiteExplorer as I'm not interested in the inbound links, only the outbound links. Thanks, Elias
Moz Pro | | A_Q0 -
Bulk OSE Open Site Explorer Tool?
I am trying to do some spring cleaning for a client and hoping to prune any unnecessary domains. Is there a tool that will check, in bulk, these domains through Open Site Explorer? I've looked through all the different Excel spread sheet apps and google doc apps but they are incredibly buggy if they work at all since SEOmoz changed their data limits. Maybe a new tool has been updated in the last few months that I am not aware of. Thanks!
Moz Pro | | kerplow0 -
OPen Site Explorer listing criteria?
Checking link data for a potential client who has given me access to their websmaster tools account, I've noticed that Google list over 150,000 "Links to Your Site" but yet OSE only reports a tiny fraction of this number.
Moz Pro | | G-DC
I have manually verified that there are in fact direct links from the sites that are listed in Webmaster Tools but not in OSE. Does OSE discard some links? Is there a reporting lag? Does anyone know why there would be such a large discrepancy?0 -
Why is open site explorer not showing the top links that if found previously.
In previous months ago open site explorer listed many other sites linking to mine. I have checked those sites and they are still linking to my site. Why doesn't open site explorer list them?
Moz Pro | | call4help0 -
Site metric tool
Is there a tool on here (or anywhere else) where you can upload a list of sites (say 500 sites) and be given things like mozrank on it?
Moz Pro | | thefresh0 -
Missing back links in Open Site Explorer?
I'm looking at the Open Site Explorer for my site, and it shows 9 links to my site, all from 2 domains (showing all links from all pages and for both www and not www version of my domain name). But I know for sure that there are other sites linking to my site. Are they not there because they are not important or because the links have not been crawled yet?
Moz Pro | | jsoldi0