Flow of internal link equity
-
I've recently come across this:
A site changes the URL of one internal page to something more search friendly, and 301's the old to the new as you would expect.
They don't change the link on the homepage in the navigation. Instead they keep it to the old URL so they go through the 301 to get to the page even though it's internal.
They say if they change the URL it will reset the internal flow of link equity to that page.
I've not come across this before and so am not sure what to think. I mean I can see what they're saying but I would have though that it being internal would mean it's different and that the flow to internal pages would just kind of resume as-was quite soon afterwards.
Any views?
-
Steve... "P" for Pope too!
-
Hehe I felt the need to go check out the pope's new site from that, nice amount of links as one would expect but some awful on-site... the whole thing is an image, and then tables instead of CSS on other pages... and no analytics
-
...and refuse to give it upper-case on principle
Bad attitude... you will never get a link from the Pope's new site until you start using "G".
-
"Ask them if they ever hunt rabbits.
Then ask if they try to kill them by shooting straight at them or if they try to hit them with a ricochet. :-)"
EGOL, it may get me into trouble but I swear to god I am actually going to do that... I'm going to ask them that exactly how you've said it because I just won't be able to resist it now lol.
Thanks... for the burst of laughter and for the answer I needed!
P.S. All Viewers: Before anybody points it out, I know god is meant to have a capital G but I'm an anti-theist and refuse to give it upper-case on principle (I get corrected on that purposeful typo a lot so thought I'd nip it in the bud this time).
-
They don't change the link on the homepage in the navigation. Instead they keep it to the old URL so they go through the 301 to get to the page even though it's internal.
Ask them if they ever hunt rabbits.
Then ask if they try to kill them by shooting straight at them or if they try to hit them with a ricochet.
They say if they change the URL it will reset the internal flow of link equity to that page.
If you have trouble extracting them from this thinking then I don't think that they are ready for your services. You will be pulling teeth through every step of the job.
-
Yeah that's pretty much what I was thinking but then could they be right? I mean there doesn't seem to be any data anywhere to show if it does have an affect on the linked-to page (however minimal). Somebody somewhere must have tested it.
It does make sense to keep it seen as a moved page and not a new one to keep whatever trust it's built up but surely as an internal page, any new page that replaces it wouldn't take long to pull that same trust back in anyway (this is based on the fact that it's not exactly got a lot of equity anyway).
-
Yep, that sounds like a load of old cobblers to me. Surely, you change a page, you update your navigation?
"reset the internal flow of link equity?" - really? So, are they implying that if they link to the new page in the navigation, it will somehow affect the ranking of said page. But if they use the 301 it will be fine?
Sounds like someone not really getting what is going on here behind the scenes. I can only imagine that they want googlebot to crawl that link to realise the page name has been updated and have somehow extrapolated this from that train of thought with the intention of making sure it is seen as a moved page rather than a new one.
Marcus
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
-
HTTPs to HTTP Links
Hi Mozers, I have a question about the news that Google Chrome will start blocking mixed content starting in December 2019. That starting in December 2019, users that are presented insecure content will be presented a toggle allowing those Chrome users to unblock the insure resources that Chrome is blocking. And in January 2020, Google will remove that toggle option an will just start blocking mixed content or insecure web pages. Not sure what this means. What are the implications of this for a HTTPS page that has an HTTP link? Thanks, Yael
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yaelslater0 -
New link explorer
I was checking this new tool which is really cool by the way and was wondering if I can outrank big guys with just content. I have a Domain authority of 28 with a spam score of 28 % Can I outrank with amazing content a site that hase a domain authority of 50 and a spam score of 1 % ? Should I ask for all my bad links to be removed so that my spam score goes down or doesn't it matter anymore those days and what matters is good content, link just don't count anymore ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
Benefit of internal link in content
Hi, Is there a real benefit to having internal links in content other than at the bottom of a page for example and not surrounded by content. Would the benefit be 1 to 10 or 1 to 1.5 ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Canonicals Passing Link Juice?
After having read this thread, the answer seems to be a tentative "Yes", but I am curious if I am doing this wrong, or causing myself problems, for a specific situation. We have a thread on the forums that has over 50,000 views for that thread alone. No doubt many people have linked to it across the web, and it ranks very well with Google. But we are dealing with a major problem in that the main portion of our site (home page and core content) which are the most important, aren't ranking in Google at all. A big part of this is because that part of the site hasn't been updated in years, whereas the forum is updated daily. By users. We've begun putting out quality content in our News Center lately, and hoping to start boosting its presence in Google. We have an article on the exact same topic that the forum thread covers. I was thinking of putting a canonical on that thread, pointing to the article, and hopefully pointing some very powerful link juice, popularity, and traffic into our news center articles. People can comment there as well if they like. Are there any potential downsides to doing this? My hope is that the forum thread loses rankings and the article takes on its rankings. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HLTalk1 -
International Sitemaps
Hey Dudes, Quick question about international sitemaps. Basically we have a mix of subfolders, subdirectories, and ccTLDs for our different international/language sites. With this in mind how do you recommend we set up the site map. I'm thinking the best solution would be to move the subfolders and subdirectories onto an index and put the ccTLD site maps on their own root only. domain.ca/sitemap (This would only contain the Canada pages) domain.com, fr.domain.com, domain.com/eu/ (These pages would all have an index on domain.com/sitemap that points to each language/nations index) OR Should all site have a site map under their area. domain.com/sitemap, fr.domain.com/sitemap, domain.com/eu/sitemap, domain.ca/sitemap? I'm very new to international SEO. I know that our current structure probably isn't ideal... but it's what I've inherited. I just want to make sure I get a good foundation going here. So any tips are much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | blake.runyon0 -
First Link on Page Still Only Link on Page?
Bruce Clay and others did some research and found that the first link on the page is the most important and what is accredited as the link. Any other links on the page mean nothing. Is this still true? And in that case, on an ecommerce site with category links in the top navigation (which is high on the code), is it not useful to link to categories in the content of the page? Because the category is already linked to on that page. Thank you, Tyler
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tylerfraser0 -
Unnatural Links Removal - are GWMT links enough?
Hi, When working on unnatural links penalty, is removing and disavowing links shown on the GWMT enough or should the list be broaden to include OSE and Majestic etc.? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
How should i best structure my internal links?
I am new to SEO and looking to employ a logical but effective internal link strategy. Any easy ways to keep track of what page links to what page? I am a little confused regarding anchor text in as much as how I should use this. e.g. for a category page "Towels", I was going to link this to another page we want to build PA for such as "Bath Sheets". What should I put in for anchor text? keep it simple and just put "Bath Sheets" or make it more direct like "Buy Bath Sheets". Should I also vary anchor text if i have another 10 pages internally linking to this or keep it the same. Any advise would be really helpful. Thanks Craig
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0