Page links, header links, footer links

[Rahim119]

HI I have been hearing about links, you should keep to 100

Just look at this url http://www.powerwale.com/store/acdelco-sealed-vrla-iacdv5l--b-5ah-bike-battery/77031

and go for Recommend section, where you same product applies to different vehicles

1. im confused, should keep it or not?
2. Header links are less, Footer links are less, and in the future, we are planning to add more, will this affect SEO more than 100
i see many ecommerce sites, has menu showing many categories, more 100 categories links
3. Wht about link equity? If I have more links in header and footer page(all this will follow in the rest of pages).
4. More links in the header and footer shows that you are big ecommerce site..

Pls suggest, which is right way and go gain SEO value

[RuthBurrReedy]

If you have more than one link to the same page on a given page, it won't be considered duplicate content necessarily - but it also won't pass any additional page equity.

[Rahim119]

little, side topic,

As my header is thin, i have some pages good PA, can I use same fews links again in the detailed of page, for high PA pages...

will not consider duplicate links, as header has same links, will the equlity value will be more???

[RuthBurrReedy]

Hi,

1. In general, the closer to the top of the page a link is, the more link equity it's going to pass. Links in the header are at the top and appear on every page, so they tend to pass a lot of value. That said, the more links you have in your header, the more that link equity should be diluted, so really think about how your users are going to use your header for navigation and which pages should be in there. Links in the footer tend to pass little to no value and should be used for navigational purposes.

2. I would not recommend adding links dynamically to your header or footer at a page level. Links to related pages should go in the main content section of each page.

[Rahim119]

Thanks,

1. Wht is value of header and footer links in terms of juice or passing value, which is more value header or footer? because I see the same header and footer is being followed?

2. Will it be effective, If I add url dynamically url related to header or footer for the detailed page, relevant useful links, rather in the content page

Appreciate your answer on this..

[RuthBurrReedy]

Hi!

The guideline about trying to keep your links per page under about 100 (and it really is a guideline more than a rule) says that once you have more than about 100 links on a page, the likelihood of those links passing any internal link equity is pretty low. I also like to keep headers as small as I can to reduce page load time and make them easier to use. It looks like your header and footer are pretty small right now. The reason many ecommerce websites have lots of links in their headers is that they need them in order to help users find what they need on the site - this is a more important consideration than how many links you have per page for SEO purposes.

A good rule for headers - your most important pages should be included in your header. This includes your major product categories and sub-categories, but shouldn't include every single product. You want your users to be able to use the header to navigate deep into the site without the header being confusing for them to use. For example, it might be useful for you to expand the drop-down under "All batteries" to include your top categories, so Google gets a bigger signal "these pages are important" and users can easily find the type of battery they're looking for.

As far as your "Recommend For" section, I can see why you would want to have it for your users so they can easily tell whether or not the product will work with the machine they have. I would recommend re-formatting the list so that it's easier to read - right now it's just a big block of links. You may want to try breaking the list up into the same categories that you break up batteries into. That way, you could link back to the category page with the category name and then have a bulleted list of products below it that aren't links. That would reduce the total number of links on the page and make the whole list easier for your customers to ues.