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.
Does page "depth" matter
-
Would it have a negative effect on SEO to have a link from the home page to this page...
http://www.website/com/page1deep/page2deep
rather than to this page
http://www.website/com/page1deep
I'm hoping that made some sense. If not I'll try to clarify.
Thanks,
Mark
-
I had a quick scan thought the article and it looks likethey are talking from a usability aspect. I am talking from a link juice aspect. Page rank passes only 85% thought a link, so if the home page passes PR of 1 thought each of its likes, the a page one click away only gets 0.85, 2 clicks 0.72, 3 clicks 0.61, 4 clicks 0.52.
It gets a bit more complicated when the pages link back to the home page, theough dopnt pass back as much either.
i have a simple explaination here.
http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/a-simple-explanation-of-pagerank
And her is a caculator that you can ry to see how it workes out.
-
"if page domain.com/rootpage.htm takes 4 clicks to get to it from the home page then you have a problem."
I've always believed it's best to keep the clicks down, but I recently read some research that shows many clicks are not necessarily a problem: http://www.uie.com/articles/three_click_rule/ - though the research is from 2003 and I'd say people have become more impatient and expectant of more instant results since then, it's still interesting and proves that 3 clicks doesn't have to be a rule.
There's also a useful article about "the scent of information" here: http://searchengineland.com/seo-and-the-scent-of-information-26206
-
Thank you Geoff, Casey and Alan.
Great answers and exactly what I needed to know.
-
Its not how many folders deep your pages is, but how many clicks from the home page it is.
if page domain.com/deep/deep/deep/deeppage.htm is linked from the home page then thats ok.
if page domain.com/rootpage.htm takes 4 clicks to get to it from the home page then you have a problem.
-
I might have misunderstood the question but what really matters is how you get to the content not necessarily the URL structure (relevancy required - no spam please).
Given this "freshness" aspect i.e. recent links / social shares will enhance the opportunities for this particular page to appear in the results (given other SEO boxes are "ticked"), the "extra" folders will not matter.
-
Hi Mark,
This will not hurt your SEO at all, here is a video from Matt Cutts explaining the issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_A1iRY6XTM
Hope that helps!
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
-
What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?
Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?
On-Page Optimization | | mbmozmb0 -
Should we rename and update a page or create a new page entirely?
Hi Moz Peoples! We have a small site with a simple site navigation, with only a few links on the nav bar. We have been doing some work to create a new page, which will eventually replace one of the links on the nav bar. The question we are having is, is it better to rename the existing page and replace its content and then wait for the great indexer to do its thing, or perm delete the page and replace it with the new page and content? Or is this a case where it really makes no difference as long as the redirects are set up correctly?
On-Page Optimization | | Parker8180 -
My target keyword is "moringa powder" but my product title is "moringa ultimate original powder". Is this a problem?
The focus keyword is "moringa powder". The product title and default H1 tag is "moringa ultimate original powder". The url also has "moringa ultimate original powder". Yoast is saying the keyword does not appear in the url or any subheadings. So should I change the product title and url to Original Ultimate moringa powder or is having them separated ok? https://greenvirginproducts.com/product/moringa/150-gram-moringa-ultimate-original-powder/ Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Jeremy-Marion0 -
Why are http and https pages showing different domain/page authorities?
My website www.aquatell.com was recently moved to the Shopify platform. We chose to use the http domain, because we didn't want to change too much, too quickly by moving to https. Only our shopping cart is using https protocol. We noticed however, that https versions of our non-cart pages were being indexed, so we created canonical tags to point the https version of a page to the http version. What's got me puzzled though, is when I use open site explorer to look at domain/page authority values, I get different scores for the http vs. https version. And the https version is always better. Example: http://www.aquatell.com DA = 21 and https://www.aquatell.com DA = 27. Can somebody please help me make sense of this? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | Aquatell1 -
Should I optimize my home-page or a sub-page for my most important keyword
Quick question: When choosing the most important keyword set that I would like to rank for, would I be better off optimizing my homepage, or a sub page for this keyword. My thinking goes as follows: The homepage (IE www.mysite.com) naturally has more backlinks and thus a better Google Page Rank. However, there are certain things I could do to a subpage (IE www.mysite.com/green-widgets-los-angeles ) that I wouldn't want to do to the homepage, which might be more "optimal" overall. Option C, I suppose, would be to optimize both the homepage, and a single sub-page, which is seeming like a pretty good solution, but I have been told that having multiple pages optimized for the same keywords might "confuse" search engines. Would love any insight on this!
On-Page Optimization | | Jacob_A2 -
Listing all services on one page vs separate pages per service
My company offers several generalized categories with more specific services underneath each category. Currently the way it's structured is if you click "Voice" you get a full description of each voice service we offer. I have a feeling this is shooting us in the foot. Would it be better to have a general overview of the services we offer on the "Voice" page that then links to the specified service? The blurb about the service on the overview page would be unique, not taken from the actual specific service's page.
On-Page Optimization | | AMATechTel0 -
Rel="canonical" on home page?
I'm using wordpress and the all in one seo pack with the canonical option checked. As I understand it the rel="canonical" tag should be added to pages that are duplicate or similar to tell google that another page (one without the rel="canonical" tag) is the correct one as the url in the tag is pointing google towards it. Why then does the all in one seo pack add rel="canonical" to every page on my site including the home page? Isn't that confusing for google?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
Is there a SEO penalty for multi links on same page going to same destination page?
Hi, Just a quick note. I hope you are able to assist. To cut a long story short, on the page below http://www.bookbluemountains.com.au/ -> Features Specials & Packages (middle column) we have 3 links per special going to the same page.
On-Page Optimization | | daveupton
1. Header is linked
2. Click on image link - currently with a no follow
3. 'More info' under the description paragraph is linked too - currently with a no follow Two arguments are as follows:
1. The reason we do not follow all 3 links is to reduce too many links which may appear spammy to Google. 2. Counter argument:
The point above has some validity, However, using no follow is basically telling the search engines that the webmaster “does not trust or doesn’t take responsibility” for what is behind the link, something you don’t want to do within your own website. There is no penalty as such for having too many links, the search engines will generally not worry after a certain number.. nothing that would concern this business though. I would suggest changing the no follow links a.s.a.p. Could you please advise thoughts. Many thanks Dave Upton [long signature removed by staff]0