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
-
The Consequences & Best Practices In Changing Domains
Working with a long established/organic successful site that, for brand reasons I disagree with, is verging on changing its domain name. Other than 301ing individual pages to their new domain name equivalent, getting canonicals updated, updating SSL certificates, new Google Search Console with old settings, maintaining the old robots.txtetc what else is worth paying attention to? Assuming I do all of that, how bad a hit to organic over what period of time might this result in? 6 months ago we migrated to https and that was hardly felt, but this is really a brand new domain name altogether. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Best-practice URL structures with multiple filter combinations
Hello, We're putting together a large piece of content that will have some interactive filtering elements. There are two types of filters, topics and object types. The architecture under the hood constrains us so that everything needs to be in URL parameters. If someone selects a single filter, this can look pretty clean: www.domain.com/project?topic=firstTopic
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digitalcrc
or
www.domain.com/project?object=typeOne The problems arise when people select multiple topics, potentially across two different filter types: www.domain.com/project?topic=firstTopic-secondTopic-thirdTopic&object=typeOne-typeTwo I've raised concerns around the structure in general, but it seems to be too late at this point so now I'm scratching my head thinking of how best to get these indexed. I have two main concerns: A ton of near-duplicate content and hundreds of URLs being created and indexed with various filter combinations added Over-reacting to the first point above and over-canonicalizing/no-indexing combination pages to the detriment of the content as a whole Would the best approach be to index each single topic filter individually, and canonicalize any combinations to the 'view all' page? I don't have much experience with e-commerce SEO (which this problem seems to have the most in common with) so any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!0 -
When migrating website platforms but keeping the domain name how best do we add the new site to google webmaster tools? Best redirect practices?
We are moving from BigCommerce to Shopify but maintaining our domain name and need to make sure that all links redirect to their corresponding links. We understand the nature of 301s and are fine with that, but when it comes to adding the site to google webmaster tools, not losing link juice and the change of address tool we are kind of lost. Any advice would be most welcome. Thank you so much in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WNL0 -
Authorship, SEO and implementation at an institutional level
Hi Everyone, Does anyone know of a great case study on how an institution and/or company implemented authorship in an organized manner to benefit their SEO efforts as an organization? Moz, I noticed you guys seemed to have done this? Can you give me some high level guidelines? BTW this would be a great blog post. Thanks Carla
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carla_Dawson0 -
How should i best structure my internal links?
I am new to SEO and looking to employ a logical but effective internal link strategy. Any easy ways to keep track of what page links to what page? I am a little confused regarding anchor text in as much as how I should use this. e.g. for a category page "Towels", I was going to link this to another page we want to build PA for such as "Bath Sheets". What should I put in for anchor text? keep it simple and just put "Bath Sheets" or make it more direct like "Buy Bath Sheets". Should I also vary anchor text if i have another 10 pages internally linking to this or keep it the same. Any advise would be really helpful. Thanks Craig
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
What are best practices for anchor text diversification in a post-penguin world?
There is growing concern for this topic as the best white-hat tactics generally allow you to choose your own anchor text (eg. guest posting and infographics)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LaunchAStartup0 -
Best Link Solicitation Email Structure - Link Building
Hello, What is the best thing to say when soliciting a link for link building. Say you're contacting a site with a resource section where your competitors are listed. What would you say to be the most persuasive. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
What are best SEO practices for product pages of unique items when the item is no longer available?
Hello, my company sells used cars though a website. Each vehicle page contains photos and details of the unit, but once the vehicle is sold, all the contents are replaced by a simple text like "this vehicle is not available anymore".
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Darioz
Title of the page also change to a generic one.
URL remains the same. I doubt this is the correct way of doing, but I cannot understand what method would be better. The improvement I am considering for pages of no longer available vehicles is this: keep the page alive but with reduced vehicle details, a text like: this vehicles is not available anymore and automatic recommendations for similar items. What do you think? Is this a good practice or do you suggest anything different? Also, should I put a NOINDEX tag on the expired vehicles pages? Thank you in advance for your help.0