Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Digital Marketing
    3. Web Design
    4. Html 5 main and secondary navigation for SEO best performances

    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.

    Html 5 main and secondary navigation for SEO best performances

    Web Design
    3
    8
    3143
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • netbuilder
      netbuilder last edited by

      I am building a website which will have a main navigation related to the site and each link of the main navigation will have a secondary navigation. We do not want to use a megamenu style navigation. I will try to explain it with a example:

      Let's start with an example for a computer store "My PC Store", the Main Navigation would be:

      Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets
      Multimedia

      When clicking on the "Notebook & Tablets" the user is directed to the page domain.com/notebook-tablet.html and on this page the secondary navigation appears: Laptop Netbook Tablets / iPad I am confused on how I should organize the semantic navigation for best SEO performances and I need advice / suggestions. I thought about 2 different ways to do it but which one is more appropriate in terms of SEO? PROPOSITION A Home Page:

      <header>

      My PC Store <nav>

      • Desktop PC's
      • Notebook & Tablets
      • Multimedia </nav> </header>

      Sub-Page (Notebook & Tablets):

      <nav>(or

      <aside>?)

      • Desktop PC's
      • Notebook & Tablets
      • Multimedia </aside>

      </nav>

      <header>

      Notebook & Tablets <nav>

      • Laptop
      • Netbook
      • Tablets / iPad </nav> </header>

      As you notice on the home page the Main Site Navigation is included in the

      <header>while it is not in the sub-pages.

      PROPOSITION B

      Home Page:

      <header>

      My PC Store

      <nav>

      • Desktop PC's

      • Notebook & Tablets

      • Multimedia

      </nav>

      </header>

      Sub-Page (Notebook & Tablets):

      <header>

      Notebook & Tablets <nav>

      • Desktop PC's
      • Notebook & Tablets
      • Multimedia </nav> # Notebook & Tablets * Laptop
      • Netbook
      • Tablets / iPad </header>

      The main navgation remains always in the

      <header>(home page / sub-pages) of all page.

      I need suggestions... How would you guys organize the nav ?

      </header>

      </header>

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • MatthewBarby
        MatthewBarby @netbuilder last edited by

        Apologies, typed that up wrong. Have updated above post.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • netbuilder
          netbuilder @netbuilder last edited by

          Why are you inserting

          outside

          <header>?</header>

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • MatthewBarby
            MatthewBarby @netbuilder last edited by

            My apologies. I would go with the following example in order to maintain a good SEO with your webpage headers and also a solid navigation:

            Home page:

            <header>

            My PC Store

            <nav>

            • Desktop PC's

            • Notebook & Tablets

            • Multimedia

            </nav>

            </header>

            Sub Page:

            <header>

            <nav>

            Notebook & Tablets

            *** Desktop PC's**

            • Notebook & Tablets
              *** Multimedia**

            </nav>

            </header>

            **<nav>

            • Laptop
            • Netbook
            • Tablets / iPad </nav>**

            Hope this helps.

            Matt.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • netbuilder
              netbuilder @netbuilder last edited by

              OK but you don't answer to my question since we do not want any mega menu or drop down menu.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • MatthewBarby
                MatthewBarby @netbuilder last edited by

                This is true if it is wrapped within JavaScript, so that the search engines cannot read it. However, if you use two separate navigation menus then you can negate this problem.

                Also, if you were to code up the 'mega menu' style navigation with CSS3 then you could also avoid these crawling problems and make the navigation much more search-engine friendly.

                In general, I try to avoid using sub-pages within site to extend navigation (unless it is completely different product areas or business verticals).

                Matt.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • netbuilder
                  netbuilder @MatthewBarby last edited by

                  Well there are in general SEO concerns in the use of navigation Mega Menu style and this is why we want to avoid it.

                  MatthewBarby netbuilder 5 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • MatthewBarby
                    MatthewBarby last edited by

                    Hi There,

                    I think I have got the jist of what you're trying to achieve.

                    What I would recommend is that you have links to Desktop PC's, Notebook & Tablets, Multimedia, Laptop, Netbook, Tablets / iPad directly from your homepage. The reason being that this will allow the search engines to crawl your webpages easier and the subcategory pages won't be so deep within the domain.

                    What I mean is that I would use either a drop down list, so that when the Notebook & Tablets is hovered over, the subcategories are then displayed below it. Alternatively, you could have a secondory naviagtion on the homepage, i.e. with an extensive drop-down list lower down or at the side of the webpage.

                    Great examples of this type of navigation can be found on: http://www.ebuyer.com or http://www.musicmatters.co.uk/shop.html (look at the secondary nav on the right for the Music Matters shop page.

                    I hope this helps.

                    Matt.

                    netbuilder 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • laurentjb

                      What type of website is best for seo.

                      website

                      I need a new website for my health insurance business. What type is best for SEO? Many thanks

                      Web Design | | laurentjb
                      1
                    • Dino64

                      Internal Linking: What is the best practice for pages not included in Nav bar?

                      I never quite understood why internal linking was such a big deal for SEO, but now I'm having second thoughts and perhaps understanding it more. I always thought since most websites have a navigation feature--usually the menu bar located at the top and often another one in the footer--that internal navigation was usually already built in to most websites and therefore, a silly topic to make a fuss over; however, I may be the silly one after all. I am now creating pages that are not included in the navigation so.... What is the best practice for this? If I am creating say, pages for certain locations and those location pages begin to number in the hundreds, it makes my navigation bar a little too cumbersome to have all those pages in a drop down menu. So I made a Locations page and just link to all those pages from that page (and from nowhere else). But now I'm wondering if this could be a bad internal linking practice and perhaps hurt my online visibility as an SEO ranking factor. Is this a crawl problem? And if so, is there a better option that provides a good visitor experience while appeasing the search engines.

                      Web Design | | Dino64
                      0
                    • ShalinTJ

                      How can a Pincode finder website be SEO optimised?

                      Guys, I wanted to build a simple Pincode finder website for India. The targeted visitors as is obvious will be from India. Alike other Pincode finder websites, the users in this case too will have to key in the location / area of whose pincode he is looking for and they will get Pincode from that very location / area. Other than this, users will also come to this website when they search for something like " <location name="">pincode</location>" on Google (for instance, users will search for something like "Hiranandani Gardens Powai Pincode") Along with data fethced from our sources via Indian postal departments and other data available in public domain, we shall be using data from Google Maps API too. My question in regards to the same is as follows: What should the page-structure / structure of the website be for ranking well on Google? What should be the URL structure? Other suggestions to rank well on Google in this regards? Competition: (You can search for the term "Hiranandani Gardens Powai Pincode" to know how these sites show data) http://www.getpincode.info http://www.pincode.net.in Pls. help...

                      Web Design | | ShalinTJ
                      0
                    • stradiji

                      Website Redesign SEO Checklist

                      I am looking for a comprehensive Website Redesign SEO Checklist. One of my customers is changing its website design (including URL structure) and I need all kinds of suggestions for a smooth SEO operation. Thanks in advance!

                      Web Design | | stradiji
                      0
                    • EcommerceSite

                      What is the best tool to view your page as Googlebot?

                      Our site was done with asp.net and a lot of scripting. I want to see what Google can see and what it can't. What is the best tool that duplicates Googlebot? I have found several but they seem old or inaccurate.

                      Web Design | | EcommerceSite
                      0
                    • csmm

                      Pages vs. Posts for SEO

                      Hi, I would like your thoughts about pages vs. posts for SEO. I understand the difference in terms of WP structure and have read the SEOmoz blog post about setting up your site for SEO success (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success). However, if you're trying to rank for a particular keyword, it seems that either one could work, from an on-page SEO perspective, as far as title tag, URL, meta description, etc. So how do you decide whether to set up a page vs. a post? What are the pros and cons, from an SEO perspective, about using one vs. the other? Thanks in advance! Carolina

                      Web Design | | csmm
                      0
                    • DWJames

                      Best method to stop crawler access to extra Nav Menu

                      Our shop site has a 3 tier drop down mega-menu so it's easy to find your way to anything from anywhere. It contains about 150 links and probably 300 words of text. We also have a more context-driven single layer of sub-category navigation as well as breadcrumbs on our category pages. You can get to every product and category page without using the drop down mega-menu. Although the mega-menu is a helpful tool for customers, it means that every single page in our shop has an extra 150 links on it that go to stuff that isn't necessarily related or relevant to the page content. This means that when viewed from the context of a crawler, rather than a nice tree like crawling structure, we've got more of an unstructured mesh where everything is linked to everything else. I'd like to hide the mega-menu links from being picked up by a crawler, but what's the best way to do this? I can add a nofollow to all mega-menu links, but are the links still registered as page content even if they're not followed? It's a lot of text if nothing else. Another possibility we're considering is to set the mega-menu to only populate with links when it's main button is hovered over. So it's not part of the initial page load content at all. Or we could use a crude yet effective system we have used for some other menus we have of base encoding the content inline so it's not readable by a spider. What would you do and why? Thanks, James

                      Web Design | | DWJames
                      0
                    • hfranz

                      Should I Remove URL extentions for SEO?

                      We are having a developer design our website with Magento. I noticed the main pages such as About Us have no file extention in the URL. But the product pages have a .html file extention. I was once told to remove the file extentions. Are there benefits to removing the .html file extension and if so, is there a way we can do this using Magento?

                      Web Design | | hfranz
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    • Digital Marketers
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.