To Many Links On Page
-
I'm having a problem on a crawl warning for our main site. The warning is that every one of my pages has to many links, a little over 1,000 on almost all of them.
I think this is because our category list on our left hand sidebar has so many categories, and that sidebar appears on every last one of our pages even all the way into our products.
Can anyone take a look and tell me if this is the reason why and what I could possibly do about this?
Thanks in advance!
-
Thank You,
I will begin this process next, this is the one that will take some time. The main categories shouldn't be to big of an issue to switch around but we have a LOT of subcategories. In the end it will all be worth it.
Thanks again for all the help!
-
Good to see some quick changes implemented on your end. Definitely much better than before. Again, try grouping all of those product categories in your side nav into 7-10 'sub categories'. Wheelchairs for example. It looks like you've got 4 wheelchair categories. Group that into 'Wheelchairs & Wheelchair accessories', then when the user clicks on that link, they can further refine their search.
-
Ah, got it - late to the party, as usual
I strongly suspect it'll make a noticeable difference, but give it some time and collect data like a madman. -
I redid the side navigation bar as recommend by others. Almost every category had a drop down menu that led to many more links. Now it only shows the base categories and hopefully that will solve the problem!
Thanks!
-
Did you modify the site recently? I'm only seeing about 74 links on the home-page.
In general, I think the other commenters raise good points - 100 links isn't a hard limit, but there's a fundamental truth for both search spiders and human visitors: the more links you have, the less love each link gets. It's always a balancing act, but building a more heirarchical approach can focus attention and internal PR at the top. For 74 links, it's just tweaks (I think you could improve the left side-bar a bit). For 1,000 links, I'd definitely consider a new information architecture.
-
agree with UI comments and simplifying - it will improve all aspects user experience and machine ( spyder scanning)
-
Thank you very much, hopefully the next time my pages get crawled it will be without those errors.
-
I second that rule of 7! I was trying to remember what it was called when writing my response - thanks for jogging my memory!
-
There's no hard & fast rule to how many links you want to have on a page, but if I had to toss out a number, you don't want it over 100 per page. There's likely a strong correlation with pages with hundreds or thousands of links on a given page and the spammy quality of the site.
Your issue in my opinion isn't as much an SEO issue as it is a usability issue. Your side navigation is just WAY too much. Once you click on one of those navigation items, you the user should be taken to another page. There's just way too much text there and it's difficult to read - it's difficult for the user to take in that information.
Try to follow 'The Rule of 7'. If you go beyond 7 items in a side navigation menu like that, it becomes increasingly difficult to take all of that information in. You should ideally try to divide up all of your products into about 7-10 categories. Those are the categories that you display in the side navigation menu. Then, when the user click on one of those items, they're taken to another page.
-
One possible solution would be to add the 'family' of pages you currently list to your sitemap page, and just have your 'parent' pages listed on the sidebar.
People coming to your site will only visit the 'children' pages through exact-match search terms or through their user journey, so you needn't worry about listing everything on the homepage. Your homepage is there to help entice people to look further - let them discover your other products easily, rather than being given a list of options they must choose from.
That's an opinion - not a solution, really, but it gives you an option at least! Your site would be cleaner and easier to crawl if you just had the parent pages in the sidebar
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
-
When using external links for onsite optimization, should they be follow or nofollow links?
I'm trying to optimize my home page and need to add external links. I'm planning to link to other authoritative sites. Should they be follow or no follow links?
On-Page Optimization | | ntaparia171 -
How do you increase the page footprint, so more links appear on search result?
We want to have more website links to appear in SERP. How to do that?
On-Page Optimization | | WalterHalicki0 -
Links to Paywall from Content Pages
Hi, My site is funded by subscriptions. We offer lengthy excerpts, and then direct people to a single paywall page, something like domain.com/subscribe/ This means that most pages on the site links to /subscribe, including all of the high value pages that bring people in from Google. This is a page with an understandably high bounce rate, as most users are not interested in paying for content on the web. My question is are we being penalized in Google for having so many internal links to a page with a very high bounce rate? If anyone has worked with paywall sites before and knows the best practices for this, I'd be really grateful to learn more.
On-Page Optimization | | enotes0 -
Is reported duplication on the pages or their canonical pages?
There are several sections getting flagged for duplication on one of our sites: http://mysite.com/section-1/?something=X&confirmed=true
On-Page Optimization | | Safelincs
http://mysite.com/section-2/?something=X&confirmed=true
http://mysite.com/section-3/?something=X&confirmed=true Each of the above are showing as having duplicates of the other sections. Indeed, these pages are exactly the same (it's just an SMS confirmation page you enter your code in), however, they all have canonical links back to the section (without the query string), i.e. section-1, section-2 and section-3 respectively. These three sections have unique content and aren't flagged up for duplications themselves, so my questions are: Are the pages with the query strings the duplicates, and if so why are the canonical links being ignored? or Are the canonical pages without the query strings the duplicates, and if so why don't they appear as URLs in their own right in the duplicate content report? I am guessing it's the former, but I can't figure out why it would ignore the canonical links. Any ideas? Thanks0 -
Which pages should use rel="canonical" links?
I have many pages showing up as multiple content. Most of the them belong to product pages for my store, login pages that show up everywhere on the site, etc. I know that I need to use the rel=canonical link in the header but after searching the forum I'm still unsure of what pages need it. Is it the pages that I don't want searched/crawled by Google or the other way around? Thanks! Crystal
On-Page Optimization | | COfashionista0 -
Too Many Links On Internal Search Pages
A client has a too many link warning being flagged in SEOmoz. The problem is that most of the pages on the site are lists of tickets for an event etc. Is there a good way to fix the site from having too many links on pages like this http://www.easyseat.com/venue/yankee-stadium-tickets-for-sale.aspx when the user experience requires a long list of links so people can find an event?
On-Page Optimization | | TimFlint0 -
404 link | How to remove the link so it is not found?
My report has listed a few links with 404 errors. They are internal links but are not found. Is there a way to remove that link so it is not found again? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | SavingSense0 -
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