Too many on-page links vs. UX issue
-
I am having an issue with many of our pages having too many on-page links. I have gotten many of them below the 100 page limit that is suggested and I understand this is not a critical factor with SEO, but my issue is this:
Many important pages I am trying to optimize are buried at a "3rd" level which is actually not accessible from the home page navigation dropdown due to our outdated CMS. I am trying to decide if we should develop our site to display these pages on-hover from the main navigation. This would make a lot of sense since users would find these pages easier, however adding this functionality would increase on-page links by a lot more.
So in your opinion, would it be worth it to spend the money to have this functionality developed? Or would it end up hurting our SEO standings?
-
Awesome, thanks so much. I know what I need to do now.
-
FWIW, here's Matt Cutts making clear the "issue" of too many links per page is not an issue.
-
As long as you think it doesn't look "spammy," I think you should do it. User experience should be the first factor you consider in these decisions.
I mentioned this in an earlier thread, but I am currently working on two different sites targeting essentially the same market. They both get darn near the same google placement for target keywords. One of them I was allowed to redesign from the ground up, the other one I was not. The new site is generating 65% more leads with pretty much the exact same amount of traffic as the archaic, hard-to-navigate site.
I.E. you can get all the traffic in the world, but if people can't quickly find what they are looking for easily, your bounce rate will skyrocket and your business will not generate any capital via your website.
That's my two cents.
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
-
Massive Influx of Total Links - But External Links are Dropping?
Hey Moz Community, I was checking out the Links on one of my client's sites, as they were hit with spammy external links about a year ago, and noticed a large influx of Total Links to the site. According to Moz, external links have actually dropped over the last few months, so I can only assume they are internal links. But, I don't see how my client could add so many internal links over the past 5 months, as they don't do much besides upload new products (they're an ecommerce clothing retailer) via Shopify. They haven't added much over the past half year either. Total links were about 130K in Oct 2019; today, the site has almost 1 million. I've attached some screenshots for reference via Moz to better illustrate the issue. Appreciate any insights into this. Thank you in advance! hhCCUsk lyGltZD
Technical SEO | | EdenPrez0 -
Why does Google's search results display my home page instead of my target page?
Why does Google's search results display my home page instead of my target page?
Technical SEO | | h.hedayati6712365410 -
Can I reduce link count by no following links?
Hi, A large number of my pages contain over 100 links. This is due to a large drop down navigation which is on every page. To reduce my link count could I just no follow these navigation links or would I have to remove the navigation completely?
Technical SEO | | moesian0 -
Ranked on Page 1, now between page 40-50... Please help!
My site, http://goo.gl/h0igI was ranking on page one for many of our biggest keywords. All of a sudden, we completely fell off. I believe I'm down somewhere between page 40-50. I have no warning or error messages in webmaster tools. Can anyone please help me identify what the problem is? This is completely unexpected and I don't know how to fix it... Thanks in advance
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
If a page isn't linked to or directly sumitted to a search engine can it get indexed?
Hey Guys, I'm curious if there are ways a page can get indexed even if the page isn't linked to or hasn't been submitted to a search engine. To my knowledge the following page on our website is not linked to and we definitely didn't submit it to Google - but it's currently indexed: <cite>takelessons.com/admin.php/adminJobPosition/corp</cite> Anyone have any ideas as to why or how this could have happened? Hopefully I'm missing something obvious 🙂 Thanks, Jon
Technical SEO | | TakeLessons0 -
Linking out?
First of all, sorry this Q is all in one block, but iPads don't like this site or vc/vs. When using the SEOmoz on-site keyword optimizer tool, it suggests at least one link to be to an off-site page. Would it be considered a link exchange if we linked out to an niche SUPER Authority sit that had a link back to our website? It seems like a naturally good strategy, but I'm afraid google may not agree. If the answer is no, there are many similar sites that mention our company in ver good ways, awards, etc.., but with no links. I would think this is a no-brainer. Personally I would like to eventually harvest all this press coverage to benefit our site. Btw, I was grey before I learned about SEOmoz, just like the rest of our niche. Now I'm shooting to be Snow White! Hopefully it works out. 🙂 I also wrote two landing pages that I tried to SEO the right way. I would love to hear your feedback to know if they are truly effective and if they are actually white. I think they are, but don't know "all" the rules of being white http://jamproa.com/ideology/product-innovation.php http://jamproa.com/industrial-design/what-is.php Thanks!
Technical SEO | | dmac0 -
Internal Linking: Site-wide VS Content Links
I just watched this video in which Matt Cutts talks about the ancient 100 links per page limit. I often encounter websites which have massive navigation (elaborate main menu, side bar, footer, superfooter...etc) in addition to content area based links. My question is do you think Google passes votes (PageRank and anchor text) differently from template links such as navigation to the ones in the content area, if so have you done any testing to confirm?
Technical SEO | | Dan-Petrovic0 -
Optimum Number of Links on Any Given Page
One of the guidelines you provide stipulates: "You should avoid having too many (roughly defined as more than 100) hyperlinks on any given page. When search engine spiders crawl the Internet they are limited by technology resources and are only able to crawl a certain number of links per webpage. In addition, search engine algorithms divide the value of some popularity metrics by the amount of links on a given page. This means that each of the pages being linked to from a given page are also affected by the number of links on the linking page. For these reasons, we recommend you include less than 100 links per page to ensure that they are all crawled, though if your pages have a high page authority, search engines will usually follow more links." As far as these 100 links are concerned, is this in reference to ALL links including outbound, internal, etc? Or is this referring to only outbound links to other sites?
Technical SEO | | johncmmc0