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 much link juice does a sites homepage pass to inner pages and influence inner page rankings?
-
Hi,
I have a question regarding the power of internal links and how much link juice they pass, and how they influence search engine ranking positions.
If we take the example of an ecommerce store that sells kites.
Scenario 1
It can be assumed that it is easier for the kite ecommerce store to earn links to its homepage from writing great content on its blog, as any blogger that will link to the content will likely use the site name, and homepage as anchor text.
So if we follow this through, then it can be assumed that there will eventually be a large number of high quality backlinks pointing to the sites homepage from various high authority blogs that love the content being posted on the sites blog.
The question is how much link juice does this homepage pass to the category pages, and from the category pages then to the product pages, and what influence does this have on rankings?
I ask because I have seen strong ecommerce sites with very strong DA or domain PR but with no backlinks to the product page/category page that are being ranked in the top 10 of search results often, for the respective category and product pages.
It therefore leads me to assume that internal links must have a strong determiner on search rankings...
Could it therefore also be assumed that a site with a PR of 5 and no links to a specific product page, would rank higher than a site with a PR of 1 but with 100 links pointing to the specific product page? Assuming they were both trying to rank for the same product keyword, and all other factors were equal. Ie. neither of them built spammy links or over optimised anchor text?
Scenario 2
Does internal linking work both ways?
Whereas in my above example I spoke about the homepage carrying link juice downward to the inner category and product pages. Can a powerful inner page carry link juice upward to category pages and then the homepage.
For example, say the blogger who liked the kite stores blog content piece linked directly to the blog content piece from his site and the kite store blog content piece was hosted on www.xxxxxxx.com/blog/blogcontentpiece
As authority links are being built to this blog content piece page from other bloggers linking to it, will it then pass link juice up to the main blog category page, and then the kite sites main homepage?
And if there is a link with relevant anchor text as part of the blog content piece will this cause the link juice flowing upwards to be stronger?
I know the above is quite winded, but I couldn't find anywhere that explains the power of internal linking on SERP's...
Look forward to your replies on this....
-
The Pagerank of a page, no matter what page it is, will flow out of the page to the pages to which it is linked. The amount of Pagerank that is passed to a specific page is determined the amount of pagerank the linking page has, the number of links on that page, and the subtraction of a certain percentage of Pagerank (because the algorithm determines that there will always be some lost).
Take your first example:
Let's say the homepage has 100 units of link juice (just work with me here). And let's say the homepage has 16 links on it to 16 pages and the percentage of link juice lost off is 20% (I'm not aware they've ever told us exactly how much is lost). After the 20% decrease, the homepage has 80 units of link juice to pass on to the linked pages. Since there are 16 links, each page gets 5 units of link juice (80/16=5).So, in the case of your first example, where a site's homepage has a lot of links coming to it and the category and product pages don't have any, that may be alright for them. If they have a good link structure, they may pass enough Pagerank through their internal links to the category and product pages to give them enough authority to out rank other similar product pages. This actually works very well for sites because typically you want the homepage to rank for more general keywords which are more competitive and category and product pages to rank for more specific keywords which are less competitive. So, the pages that have the most authority are competing for the most competitive keywords.
In your second example, it works similarly, the blog pages each pass a certain amount of Pagerank to the homepage based on how many links each blog post gets (and how authoritative those links are) and how many links are on those blog post pages. Each post may be passing only a small amount of Pagerank, but since the blog has a lot of blog posts all linking to the homepage, it starts to add up. That builds up the Pagerank of the homepage, which can then be passed on the category and product pages. You can also pass Pagerank directly to the product pages by linking to them in the blog posts.
As to whether having a relevant keyword in the anchor text increases the amount of Pagerank passed in the link, no it doesn't. It can, however, contribute to the linked page's link reputation. The anchor text in the links to a page are one signal to the search engines of what that page is about and, thus, what keywords that page should rank for. So, having relevant keywords in the anchor text, can help a page to rank better for specific keywords because it increases the page's reputation for that keyword. This, however, I believe has been somewhat weakened lately with Google's updates. Do to spam abuse, I think Google has lessened the signal of anchor text.
I hope this to make it more clear for you.
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com
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 | Oct 3, 2019, 1:10 AM | nfrank0 -
Log-in page ranking instead of homepage due to high traffic on login page! How to avoid?
Hi all, Our log-in page is ranking in SERP instead of homepage and some times both pages rank for the primary keyword we targeted. We have even dropped. I am looking for a solution for this. Three points here to consider is: Our log-in page is the most visited page and landing page on the website. Even there is the primary keyword in this page or not; same scenario continues Log-in page is the first link bots touch when they crawling any page of our website as log-in page is linked on top navigation menu If we move login page to sub-domain, will it works? I am worrying that we loose so much traffic to our website which will be taken away from log-in page sub domain Please guide with your valuable suggestions. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | Nov 23, 2017, 10:26 AM | vtmoz0 -
Is it Okay to have "No Response" pages?
Hi all, I can see some "No Response" pages which gives a error message "Site cannot be reached" or keeps on loading but don't. I have got this list from Screaming from spider tool. Do we need to fix these or ignore? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | Aug 4, 2017, 8:34 PM | vtmoz0 -
Does Google ignores page title suffix?
Hi all, It's a common practice giving the "brand name" or "brand name & primary keyword" as suffix on EVERY page title. Well then it's just we are giving "primary keyword" across all pages and we expect "homepage" to rank better for that "primary keyword". Still Google ranks the pages accordingly? How Google handles it? The default suffix with primary keyword across all pages will be ignored or devalued by Google for ranking certain pages? Or by the ranking of website improves for "primary keyword" just because it has been added to all page titles?
Algorithm Updates | Apr 6, 2017, 9:17 AM | vtmoz0 -
Is it a good idea to 301 redirect one same niche site towards another site for seo benefit
Hello friends, I have 2 android niche sites, one site is running on a technology dropped domain i catch 1 year ago it has, almost 400+ domains linking to different parts of the site, the other one i established from scratch and both are running from jan 2015. Now i want to redirect first site which already has 400 links pointing towards it to the home page of my 2nd android site. Is it a good idea to do so and does it give any boost in terms of seo?
Algorithm Updates | Feb 8, 2016, 2:29 PM | RizwanAkbar0 -
Is it better to build a large site that covers many verticals or many sites dedicated to each vertical
Just wondering from an seo perspective is it better to build a large site that covers many verticals or build out many sites one for each vertical?
Algorithm Updates | Feb 20, 2013, 7:00 PM | tlhseo0 -
Why has my homepage been replaced in Google by my Facebook page?
Hi. I was wondering if others have had this happen to them. Lately, I've noticed that on a couple of my sites the homepage no longer appears in the Google SERP. Instead, a Facebook page I've created appears in the position the homepage used to get. My subpages still get listed in Google--just not the homepage. Obviously, I'd prefer that both the homepage and Facebook page appear. Any thoughts on what's going on? Thanks for your help!
Algorithm Updates | Sep 24, 2012, 2:15 AM | TuxedoCat0 -
Does google index non-public pages ie. members logged in page
hi, I was trying to locate resources on the topics regarding how much the google bot indexes in order to qualify a 'good' site on their engine. For example, our site has many pages that are associated with logged in users and not available to the public until they acquire a login username and password. Although those pages show up in google analytics, they should not be made public in the google index which is what happens. In light of Google trying to qualify a site according to how 'engaged' a user is on the site, I would feel that the activities on those member pages are very important. Can anyone offer suggestions on how Google treats those pages since we are planning to do further SEO optimization of those pages. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | Mar 10, 2013, 7:08 PM | jumpdates0