Too Many Links on One Page - What to Do?!

[Stew222]

Hello Geniuses, Prodigies, and Experts of the Field,

My website pages for www.1099pro.com have too many links on one page, something like 150-175, and I understand that each page should ideally be under 100.  Most of these links, approx 105, come from dropdown navigation options in the header toolbar or the footer links.

It is my take that these links make our site easier to navigate but I'm sure that they are hurting my pagerank / SERPs.  Is there a best way to handle a situation like this?  I'd really prefer not to alter the header/footer layout of the entire site by removing 50-75 navigational links.  The only other idea I have is below but I have no idea if it would work.

1. For any link that I do not care to pass pagerank, institute a "nofollow" parameter.  This would be my favorite option if it is viable.

[Stew222]

That's good to hear and thanks for the input!

The MOZ page grader told me that over 100 links was too many and so did a commenter from a separate post.  All clear now though.

[WhoWuddaThunk]

The reasoning behind limiting the number of links is because the amount of authority that is passed by a page is divided by the total number of links on that page - regardless of nofollow or not.  So, the fewer links the more authority you are passing to each of those internal pages.  Answering your subsidiary question, there would be no SEO benefit from nofollowing these links.

That being said, usability trumps this in my book always.  Go into your Google Analytics, and see which of these links people are actually clicking.  If they are going into your drop down links, then leave them.  If they are only clicking on the head link, then consider chopping them.

[David-Kley]

As long as they are all listed in the sitemap, dont worry about it. William is correct in that Google lifted the 100 links per page limit. The question is, do the links serve a purpose, or are they there to increase the page count? Perhaps you are not seeing the engagement or seo results you want due to the organization of the site structure?

BTW, who or what told you there was a need to reduce the link count? Unless you got manually penalized, why is there a need to do this?

[WilliamKammer]

Google updated their guidelines a while ago, and no longer suggests the 100 or less links per page. Now the guideline simply states, "Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number," which is subjective.  https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en

With a site like yours, full of different kinds of forms and such, it's logical to consider having 100+ links per page. There are other options for you as well, if you believe these links are hurting, but according to Google they likely are not.

If you wanted to try something different, you could think about building out detailed category pages for each sections of things you offer on the site, and make those the pages that rank for your terms. This way, the number of links on your main page is dramatically reduced, and the user experience might improve, since things aren't quite as condensed.