Lots of links on homepage to internal pages with keyword rich anchor text - problem?
-
Hi, All!
We have a new potential client, that when looking at his site with a tool, we noticed that the previous SEO company they worked with filled the homepage copy with lots of keyword-rich anchor text links pointing to different pages on the site - many links going to the same page, just with different keywords. These links are not indistinguishable in format from the other text, which is why we only noticed it with a tool.
I certainly wouldn't recommend doing that to start with, but once all these links are there, would you recommend taking them down? Is there any conceivable chance it could help the site? Is there a significant reason to think it will harm the site? Or will it just be pretty neutral?
In all that's been written (much by SEOMoz) about only the first link's anchor text counting, do subsequent links work like a no-follow in the sense that they are a waste of the link-juice of the page, or is it as if they aren't there at all? (And is "only the first link counts" still the most widely held theory, or have there been new developments since?)
Thanks, All!
-
I have been doing this a long time now and have never come across anyone who endorses this as a technique. To me if it smells even slightly of desperation or 'grey hat' then I steer well clear.
You can rest assured that Google will get what the page and site are about without having all of these multiple links to the same pages being thrown at them - in the same way they say not to keyword stuff because they don't need to keep being told
Regards,
Andy
-
Thanks, Andy. Can you explain why exactly you wouldn't endorse it and you would recommend removing the links? That's my feeling also, but I wanted some definitive reasoning before I do anything.
Thanks,
Aviva
-
I am assuming that they are looking at SEO because they need some help getting ranked in the SERP's, and what they have already have done is certainly not a practice I would endorse. My thoughts on this would be to remove all those links that take you through to the same page but with different anchor text. It is OK to have a few other links in the copy that take you through to other pages as, if nothing else, this can help with Google crawling the site and visitors whilst they are browsing through.
Regards,
Andy
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
-
Combining adjacent image and text links
Hey, The pages on one of our sites has a lot of links on it, which I have read a couple of times can be bad for SEO, although many say don't worry too much about it. However, I was thinking to reduce links and also reduce code size combining adjacent image and text links. For example they current look like this:
On-Page Optimization | | mdeluk
"
Products page" I am thinking maybe I should change to the following:
"Products page" However, is this bad code and therefore could be bad for SEO? I have tried Googling this but couldn't seem to find anything on it.0 -
Can lost pages be redirected with a 301 in order to do not lost keyword rankings?
Hi, I have got a website and some posts rank well, but I am not so interested in keep them for branding reasons. So I planned to do 301 redirects to home and remove those contents. Is it ok? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | patrizia_h0 -
OMG! does Google really consider text-decoration:none as a hidden link?
So I was reading this article today https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/ Can setting a link to the same color as regular text and applying text-decoration:none really be considered a 'hidden link'?
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
Web Design - Text links better than drop down menus?
Hello So with reading a blog post by Bruce Clay - http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/seo-friendly-web-design/ It reads that it Is best for seo to use text links instead of drop down menus. So I just wanted to ask you opinion.
On-Page Optimization | | Berner0 -
Header Links vs. In Page Links
We have lost considerable rank for some of our top search terms (department names) and the rank loss correlates to a change we made on our homepage. That change was to remove a secondary navigation to the major departments in the content of our homepage. Now all we have is the global header navigation on the homepage (and all other pages on the site). I have read that in-page links pass more value than sitewide header links and I'm wondering if this is really true. These were text links (not linked images) and our header also contains text links (and some javascript). We did not make any other changes on our site at this time and this was not around the time of any major algorithm updates. The site is www.ebags.com.
On-Page Optimization | | SharieBags1 -
Anchor text filters
I am using text replace on a blog to automatically link keywords in posts and pages back to the homepage. Sometimes the same KEYWORD links back 2/3 times in one post, can this harm rankings or cause an anchor text filter? thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | babyjane0 -
If I have too many on-page links can I reduce it with nofollow tags or do the links have to be removed?
On my site I have a top nav drop down menu but once visitors go to one particularly large subsection, that menu is repeated on the left for easier viewing. As a result, I shoot over 100 links on page. Can I put nofollow or noindex tags on the left side links and reduce my "official" on-page links count or do I have to actually eliminate some of the links? Thanks, Oak
On-Page Optimization | | CSA-2316710 -
Image alt attribute vs. plain text in link?
I'm building a product category browsing page for a high-falutin' jewelry retailer where we display only product photos linking to individual product pages, without any text in the links. From an SEO and link-juice-passing perspective, is it most effective to embed the product titles as the alt attribute in each image, or to leave alt="" and use text substitutions (i.e. an inner which is css'd to display: none) within the <a>to help search engines accept my product titles as the link text with the most credibility?</a>
On-Page Optimization | | cadenzajon0