Internal Linking

[BeckyKey]

Hi

I've been looking over my pages and it says for this page for example http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/1-6kw-halogen-heater

I have too many links, I think it was about 178.

These links are from the menu and bottom of the page - how much of an issue is this for internal linking structure? I wouldn't want to remove the menus or change them too much.

Thank you!

[MattRoney]

Hi Becky!

Just a reminder, if EGOL, Peter, or both answered your question, please mark one or more responses as "Good Answers."

[BeckyKey]

Great thank you both, I will give this a go

[Mobilio]

Have you read this article:
https://moz.com/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links
specially #5, #6

So - as EGOL says - use CrazyEgg + Riveted (Analytics plugin) + ELA https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/enhanced-link-attribution to see where they click.

[EGOL]

do you think this would have much impact for SEO?

Five years ago, my answer would have been a definite YES!   That is when the flow of PageRank through your site meant a lot.  Each link that you removed would cause more PageRank to flow through the links that remain.

Today, Google has not said that PageRank is less important (that I have heard or read) but I am betting that it is a lot less important.  I believe that it is being replaced by the authority of your domain, the engagement level of your visitors, and those "machine learning" factors that Google connected to their most recent changes.

But, every little bit of strength that you can get into your moneymaking pages is important, and for that reason, I would get rid of as many nonessential links in your template as possible.

[BeckyKey]

Hi

Thanks for the reply. Yes I've already looked at those sister company links and thought about trying to do exactly as you suggested, but yes it would be a hard sell and I would have to show some benefit to removing them.

I will look at consolidating those other sections with one footer link - do you think this would have much impact for SEO?

[EGOL]

Lots of people and SEO guides say that you should not have over 100 links on a page.

You can hear about the history of this straight from Matt Cutts in the video on this page.

The Google guidance for today is to "keep it reasonable" but they can crawl and count a lot more than 100.... and often pages with 300... 400... links are fine as long as your links are not spammy.

When I look at the footer of your page... If this was my site, I would simplify it.  I would have one link to "Help".... one to "Services".... one to "Manutan Group".

But, before deciding exactly what to do, I would run crazyegg or a simliar service on some pages and see if anybody is clicking on the links in the footer to find out what links might be important to visitors.  Some links like, terms & conditions, privacy, cookie policy, should always be there but a lot of others can all be addressed on one deep page.

I would also replace the dropdown to Manutan Family and replace it with one link to an "international sites" page where lots of information and links to country sites is provided.

That's what I would do, but I would not be surprised if manager level people didn't like me cutting back on the Manutan links.