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
-
Key webpage fluctuating between page 2 and page 6 of Google SERP
Hi, We have found that one of our key webpages has been fluctuating between page 2 and page 6 of Google SERP for around 2 weeks. Some days it will be on page 6 in the morning and then page 2 in the afternoon. We have recently updated some copy on the page and wondered if this could be the cause. Has anyone else experienced this? If so how long was it before the page settled? https://www.mrisoftware.com/uk/products/property-management-software/ Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | nfrank0 -
Does Google giving more important to internal pages than homepage recently? Especially after the recent Major algo update?
Hi everybody, I can see the change Google brought in the SERP. Previously website homepages will be shown for primary keywords, now it's slowly and almost switched to showing most related internal pages in a website. You can check same for keyword "SEO", Most or all the results are internal pages. I can see this change for our primary keyword from last one month. So basically Google is trying to show a page explaining about the primary keywords rather than website, that's how "what is seo" pages are ranking than homepages. If there is no such pages existed or not well written, Google is just showing the website homepage. But I noticed that websites ranking with homepages are dropped compared to the websites with dedicated page about that primary keyword. Please share your thoughts. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Strange Google SERP Layout: Anyone?
I haven't been able to repeat this, but I just saw a strange Google SERP layout. The screenshot is attached below. Has anyone else seen something like this? I kind of rubbed my eyes and wondered 'if it was kicking in'. ca2JqaP
Algorithm Updates | | Travis_Bailey0 -
SERPS appearing and vanishing every 15 days
I have a regional careers website on a small seo retainer contract. I manage the google webmaster account and use moz tools to help keep pages finely tuned. The site has been experiencing a phenomena now for about 6 months whereby the SERPS (we work with around 10 keyphrases) are placed in top 5 positions and generate healthy google traffic and will then suddenly vanish. The cycle is roughly 1 - 2 weeks top page, followed by 2 - 3 weeks outside the top 5 pages of google results. I contacted Google via webmaster central to ask for help and they simply confirmed that there were no penalties being applied and it was normal algorithm updates. I manage the seo for 20+ sites and have not seen this phenomenon elsewhere, not since the days of 'google dance' years ago. Has anyone else had this experience ? The SERPS always come back after a couple of weeks but then vanish again after a week or so this cycle has been ongoing for 6 months now and we have eliminated all symptoms we can think of. Your feedback would be much appreciated in this matter.
Algorithm Updates | | broadshout0 -
3 Subdomains - Can their authority or ranking affect each other?
HI, We have 3 different subdomains that target completely different industries.
Algorithm Updates | | danialniazi
a.example.com - school reviews
b.example.com - healthcare reviews
c.example.com - car reviews Q1: If any of the above subdomains gets demoted or penalized by Google would that affect the other subdomains? Q2: Moving forward with all the new changes in SEO, penalties, etc; would it be wise to utilize 3 subdomains for different industries or should we consider getting separate domains?0 -
Is my page footer the reason keyword rankings have dropped?
Hi all, One of my sites http://henstuff.com/ has seen some ranking drops for major keywords over the past few weeks and I was wondering if it was something to do with Penguin not taking a positive view of link-filled footers. It is something we are looking at phasing out but wanted to get the opinions of the SEOMOZ community. Thanks! Rob
Algorithm Updates | | RobertHill0 -
What do you think Google analyzes for SERP ranking?
I've been doing some research trying to figure out how the Google algorithm works. The one thing that is constant is that nothing is constant. This makes me believe that Google takes a variable that all sites have and divides it by that number. One example would be taking the load time in MS and dividing it by the total number or points the website scored. This would give all of the websites a random appearance since there that variable would throw off all the other constants. I'm going to continue doing research but I was wondering what you guys think matters in the Google Algorithm. -Shane
Algorithm Updates | | Seoperior0 -
Can AJAX implementation affect the rankings in Google Panda?
Hi there, I have the following situation with one of our job sites. We migrate the site to a new application, which is better from design point of view and also usability. For this we use a lot AJAX especially in searches. So every time a user is filtering down their search new results will be shown on the page, at the same url and with no page load. But, having this implementation. affected Bounce rate - which increased from 38% to nearly 60%, PI/visits - which are now half, at 3 and also Avg Time on Site is half that is used to be coming to 2,5 min from nearly 6 min. From Rand post, it is clearly that the content is very important in Google Panda, and all of these parameters we should consider, as it is telling the quality of the content. So, my question will be, can this site be hit by Panda updates (maybe later on) because Bounce Rate, PI/Visits and Avg Time on site, decreased in such way? At the moment we don't measure the Ajax impresion, but as I understood that we can do that though virtual pages in GA, does anyone of you have the experience how to handle this? Won't be this an artificial increase? Thanks, Irina
Algorithm Updates | | InformMedia0