Affect in SERPs when moving footer links off the homepage
-
I have several pages that rank highly in the SERPs and these pages are linked directly to my homepage in the footer. I want to clean up my footer because I have too many site wide links but don't want to hurt the SERP rankings during the transition. Will removing these page links from the footer impact SERP rankings?
-
Thank you Moosa and Doug - your answers were very thoughtful and helpful!
Do you believe that reducing the # of footer links will have a positive impact by providing additional link juice to the important pages that I keep?
-
What links do you need in your footer?
The importance of these pages isn't just their ranking position, but also the traffic that they are getting, and the conversion rate (how qualified are the visitors?)
I would audit your content and find out what pages really matter to you and then, if you really need to, remove the links to the pages that aren't of any commercial value and question if you actually need those pages at all.
Can you consolidate content onto one page (for example combining any lega/privacy policy/terms of service content onto one page)
Are any of the pages in your footer also linked in your main navigation? If so then you can probably remove them from the footer without affecting too much. I would add a word of caution through - if you've got lengthy content and visitors (the real human beings) are using the footer to find their way about then it's going to affect usability.
Removing links from a page passing lots of link equity then you are going to weaken the target page - if you've got loads of links on your home page and you prune some of the zero value pages you may find that you're passing more equity to your important pages.
As Moosa suggests, if you want to do some housekeeping, reduce the risk by making small changes and testing.
-
If the links in the footer of the website are of the same websites (internal pages) then removing them from the footer (as per my personal experience) will cause ranking fluctuation ...I am not sure why you are removing it but if it is because you want to stay away from the penalty caused by site wide links then IMPO with internal pages this won’t be a problem...
If you really want to remove the link from the footer the best idea is to remove the links one by one and see the impact of it on SERP rankings overall...
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
-
Subdirectories geo-targetting: Tagretting a language to a single country affects in other countries?
Hi all, We have enabled a plugin which translated our site to subdirectories. We are going to geo target certain language sites to their countires. Like Portuguese site website.com/it/ will be targetted to rank in Portugal. I wonder what to do with language sites where the same langauge is spoken in multiple countries. For example, if we target english site website.com to US; will it effects the ranking in other english countires like UK, Australia, Canada, etc....? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
How to build ( Linked domains )
I need help can someone tell me how to build Linked domains from pinterest.com,plus.google.com,facebook.com,twitter.com,linkedin.com to my website muller-designs.com all my competitors are ranking very well and have thousands of dollars of organic traffic and am not talking about the big fishes here are some examples mybarnwoodframes.com or www.framemymirror.com , this are one of my competitors, i have analize well all websites and the major difference we have are the Linked domains i have a couple of hundreds and they have thousands can someone help me anttel how can i create ( Linked domains ) o tell me what's going on with my website i spend a lot of money and time but just don't have good results i appreciate any tip of someone that already have ranked well a website THANK YOU
Algorithm Updates | | alexmuller870 -
Can 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?
E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
Doorway Algorithm Update Affecting Location Based Pages?
Hi all, I read this article concerning the doorway algorithm update - http://searchengineland.com/google-to-launch-new-doorway-page-penalty-algorithm-216974 This quote is what got my attention: "How do you know if your web pages are classified as a “doorway page?” Google said asked yourself these questions: Is the purpose to optimize for search engines and funnel visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your site, or are they an integral part of your site’s user experience? Are the pages intended to rank on generic terms yet the content presented on the page is very specific? Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic? Are these pages made solely for drawing affiliate traffic and sending users along without creating unique value in content or functionality? Do these pages exist as an “island?” Are they difficult or impossible to navigate to from other parts of your site? Are links to such pages from other pages within the site or network of sites created just for search engines?" We utilize location based pages for ourselves and a few clients too. **Example Case: ** -We attempt to rank for "keyword city/state" - "keyword city/state" - "keyword city/state" The keywords will often be the same such as "AC Repair" or "Physical Therapy" etc. with city / state combination such as "Tulsa, OK" "Seattle, WA" etc. The goal is to rank locally for those terms (NAP is applicable in some circumstances). Does the above case classify as a Doorway page? According to that definition, it does. However, this is a business that services that area. Some don't have physical address there but they do service that area (whether it be AC Repair or Website Design). Please advise me as to what a doorway page is exactly & if my practice is in-line. Thanks, Cole
Algorithm Updates | | ColeLusby0 -
Hi guys, I have a question about linking to a product page for linkbuilding. Does that count adversely vs. linking to a homepage?
Hi - so until now we have been building links via blog posts and articles and linking them to the homepage. It seems the ranking of some of my top keywords has fallen so had a few questions/concerns: Does it affect the rankings adversely if I link to the product page vs the homepage? What is rule of thumb for increasing rankings of inside pages/keywords and building links to them? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | DGM0 -
Agency footer link, do we keep it ?
Hello ! I was wondering if it's still a good idea to let a do-follow link on the bottom of agency released websites. Because they obvisouly come from different websites with no link with a web marketing agency. Do we have to keep them in the footer in no-follow ? If we do so, how to get some link juice from the different websites ? It sounds a bit stupid but one of my partners went from PR7 to PR5 recently. I guess Penguin 2.0 did not like all its links from its customers' website. Tks a lot !
Algorithm Updates | | AymanH0 -
Rich Snippets stopped showing up in SERPS
Up until a few weeks ago my testimonial review ratings (5 star rating system) were showing up in search results but they no longer do. Went to the google rich snippet testing tool and they still do there just not on the real search results. Any thoughts on why? Perhaps an algorithm change?
Algorithm Updates | | casper4340 -
Are you guys finding more No Follows being counted as links?
Wonding if anyone is finding more and more no follows actually being counted as links.
Algorithm Updates | | barrystix30