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.
How reliable is the link depth info from Xenu?
-
Hi everyone!
I searched existing Q & A and couldn't find an answer to this question. Here is the scenario:
The site is: http://www.ccisolutions.com
I am seeing instances of category pages being identified as 8 levels deep. For example, this one:
http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/B8I
This URL redirects to http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/headphones - which Xenu identifies as being only 1 level deep.
Xenu does not seem to be recognizing that the first URL 301-redirects to the second. Is this normal for the way Xenu typically reports? If so, why is the first URL indicated to be so much further down in the structure? Is this an indication of site architecture problems? Or is it an indication of problems with how our 301-redirects are being handled? Both?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
-
Hi Mike,
Many thanks ro both you and Dr. Pete. I apologize for leaving both of your answers hanging here for so long. Both explanations made perfect sense and I totally get it now. Now it's just a matter of fixing some of those issues. I've know since coming on board here as an in-house SEO that we had some pretty significant site architecture problems. This is just another one to add to my "to-fix" list
Many thanks to you both I really appreciate your responses!
Dana
-
Thanks so much Dr. Pete this is very helpful. My apologies to both you and Mike for taking so long to circle back and mark this as answered. You both have done an excellent job of explaining what I am seeing. It makes perfect sense, even though it does point to some site architecture/internal linking problems we need to fix. But that's exactly why I asked the question:-)
-
Hi Dana,
It looks like some of the *.cat links are still being used through your site.
For instance, /StoreFront/B8I.cat is actually 301-ing to /StoreFront/category/B8I.cat and /StoreFront/B8I.cat (with anchor text "headphones or earbuds") is being used on the /StoreFront/category/controlling-the-low-end-on-your-stage page.
The /StoreFront/category/controlling-the-low-end-on-your-stage page is at level 7 in your site and is linking to /StoreFront/B8I.cat, making it at level 8, which then 301s to /StoreFront/category/B8I.cat, keeping it still on level 8 because of the 301, and finally redirecting with a 301 to StoreFront/category/headphones (which is a level 1, because it is accessible from the homepage (level 0) navigation).
Does that make sense?
It did in my brain... just let me know if it does on paper : )
Hope this helps.
Mike
-
It's hard to be completely sure without digging into the crawl, but keep in mind that Xenu is crawl-based, to both things can be true. Somewhere, a link to that page is 8 levels deep, event if it 301-redirects to a page that is only 1 level deep. This could indicate a problem and/or a mismatch in your architecture. Ideally, if you're 301-redirecting the page, then there should be no internal links to the old URL. Mixed signals can make messes, so I'd try to pin down where this link is coming from. Xenu probably is seeing something real.
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
-
Is a page with links to all posts okay?
Hi folks. Instead of an archive page template in my theme (I have my reasons), I am thinking of simply typing the post title as and when I publish a post, and linking to the post from there. Any SEO issues that you can think of? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nobody16165422281340 -
Footer no follow links
Just interested to know when putting links at the foot of the site some people use no-follow tags. I'm thinking about internal pages and social networks. Is this still necessary or is it an old-fashioned idea?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Does Navigation Bar have an effect on the link juice and the number of internal links?
Hi Moz community, I am getting the "Avoid Too Many Internal Links" error from Moz for most of my pages and Google declared the max number as 100 internal links. However, most of my pages can't have internal links less than 100, since it is a commercial website and there are many categories that I have to show to my visitors by using the drop down navigation bar. Without counting the links in the navigation bar, the number of internal links is below 100. I am wondering if the navigation bar links affect the link juice and counted as internal links by Google. The Same question also applies to the links in the footer. Additionally, how about the products? I have hundreds of products in the category pages and even though I use pagination I still have many links in the category pages (probably more than 100 without even counting the navigation bar links). Does Google count the product links as internal links and how about the effect on the link juice? Here is the website if you want to take a look: http://www.goldstore.com.tr Thank you for your answers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onurcan-ikiz0 -
How to tell the date a link was created
Does anybody know of a website that can let you know when an external link was created to a site? Or any other way of finding this info out. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobSchofield0 -
Credit Links on Client Websites
I know there have been several people who have asked this but a lot of them were back in 2012 before many of the google changes. My question is the same though. With all the changes with Google's algorithm. Is it okay to put your link on the bottom of your clients website. Like Web Design by, etc. Part of the reason is to drive traffic but also if someone is actually interested who designed the website, they will click it. But now reading about how bad links can hurt you tremendously, it makes me second guess if this is ok. My gut feeling says, no.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | blackrino0 -
One Way Links vs Two Way Links
Hi, Was speaking to a client today and got asked how damaging two way links are. i.e. domaina.com links to domainb.com and domainb.com links back to domaina.com. I need a nice simple layman's explanation of if/how damaging they are compared to one way links. And please don't answer with you lose link juice as I have a job explaining link juice.... I am explaining things to a non techie! Thank you!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0 -
Where to link to HTML Sitemap?
After searching this morning and finding unclear answers I decided to ask my SEOmoz friends a few questions. Should you have an HTML sitemap? If so, where should you link to the HTML sitemap from? Should you use a noindex, follow tag? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cprodigy290 -
Link Age as SEO factor?
Hi Guys
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VividLime
I have a client who ranks well within a competitive sector of the travel industry. They are planning CMS move which will involve changing from .cfm to .aspx We will be doing the standard redirects etc However Matt's statement here on 301 redirects got me thinking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW5UL3lzBOA&t=0m24s He says that basically you loose a bit of page rank when you do a 301 redirect. Now, we will be potentially redirecting 1000s of links and my thinking is 'a lot of a little, adds up to a lot' In other words, 1000s of redirects may have a big enough impact to loose some rankings in a very competitive and aggressive space. So recommended that we contact the sites who has the link highest value and ask them to manually change the links from cfm to aspx. This will then mean that there are no loss value as with a 301 redirect. -But now I have another dilemma which I'm unsure about. So the main question:
Is link age factor in rankings ? If I update any links, this will make said link new to Google, so if link age is a factor, would this also lessen the value passed initially?0