Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is linking to search results bad for SEO?
-
If we have pages on our site that link to search results is that a bad thing? Should we set the links to "nofollow"?
-
No it will no be a problem. Even if the search results show duplicate content, to show a sample of pages is fine.
-
Those pages due to the nature of searching for them are the exact same same pages as your normal content just that the url has changed . The best way in my opinion to address this is by using the canonical element you can read more here . if your normal pages have the element embedded in the code any instance of duplicate content should not be an issue.
Hope this helps
-
So you have links to search results on your page and those links are followed and indexed by google. LInking to a search result is not a bad thing per se. Just make sure, that the indexed pages are not to similar (i.e. duplicate content).
An example:
if the indexed page for "widget" (domain.tld/search/widget) and the indexed page for "widgets" (domain.tld/search/widgets) are similar or nearly similar they might be considered duplicate content, resulting in none of them ranking. One way to test this is to use d/c checker or the seomoz campaign. You want at least 20% difference in any combination of pages.
If you manually set these links you might want to check whether the results are different enough. If you don't want these pages to be indexed at all just "follow, noindex" them.
Besides that it's not a problem.
-
Search results on our own domain
-
Hi michelleh,
to what pages specifically are you linking? Google results like http://www.google.com/search?q=query ? Pages on other domains? could you please give some more information?
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
-
Is using a subheading to introduce a section before the main heading bad for SEO?
I have noticed a popular trend in web design which involves sections of content being started with what looks to be smaller sub heading something like <h3>, <h4> or <h5> and then followed by a bigger heading <h2>. My question is, what is the best way to deal with this visual structure and will having a structure like this hurt your SEO? <h5>Contact Us</h5> <h2>Get started with your next project in minutes!<h2> <p>Some text here ...</p> Here are some examples where the header structure is similar to above (smaller before bigger): https://www.snappr.com/ https://form.taxi/ https://fluz.app/ If that structure is bad for SEO, then it seems like a simple solution is to make it purely visual, mimicking a sub header with styling on a span or paragraph like these sites do: https://www.andrejilderda.nl/ https://nightwatch.io/ https://www.swingvy.com/ https://www.figma.com/ My only concern with that approach is because your section sub heading is no longer an actual header you will miss out on ranking important and relevant keyword information for that section. Is this correct something to be worried about? There is one last solution I stumbled upon that involves using headings for both but in reverse hierarchy so a <h3> is first but styled to be smaller, followed by a visually bigger <h4> which provides the addition context. https://avocode.com/ Anyone have thoughts, expertise or resources on the matter?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | si.analytics0 -
Is an iframe redirect on the same Domain bad for SEO
Good morning. We have a vendor that has created a landing page with content that we want to use. Because of the way we built the site, the only way to use the content is to create an i-frame. The i-frame is re-directingon the same Domain. Would we benefit from the SEO Content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jdenbo_edf0 -
Does Navigation Bar have an effect on the link juice and the number of internal links?
Hi Moz community, I am getting the "Avoid Too Many Internal Links" error from Moz for most of my pages and Google declared the max number as 100 internal links. However, most of my pages can't have internal links less than 100, since it is a commercial website and there are many categories that I have to show to my visitors by using the drop down navigation bar. Without counting the links in the navigation bar, the number of internal links is below 100. I am wondering if the navigation bar links affect the link juice and counted as internal links by Google. The Same question also applies to the links in the footer. Additionally, how about the products? I have hundreds of products in the category pages and even though I use pagination I still have many links in the category pages (probably more than 100 without even counting the navigation bar links). Does Google count the product links as internal links and how about the effect on the link juice? Here is the website if you want to take a look: http://www.goldstore.com.tr Thank you for your answers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onurcan-ikiz0 -
SEO value of affiliate external links
There are websites that have linked to my site. Whenever I hover over link I see my direct website URL and I am not seeing "no follow" when viewing source code so I assume these are passing link juice. However when I click on link it directs briefly to shareasale (affiliate account) in web address bar, but then quickly directs back to my website URL as directed. I was curious if these good links I am acquiring truly pass juice or since they briefly pass through an affiliate site if that cancels or dilutes the link juice. Also I am noticing when inspecting element that after the HREF it says class="external-link" I am just not sure if my link building efforts are being ruined by having an affiliate account running.I did not tell them I had one. I guess they are searching to see that I have one and trying to make a few extra commission dollars.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nchachula0 -
H3 Tags - Should I Link to my content Articles- ? And do I have to many H3 tags/ Links as it is ?
Hello All, On my ecommerce landing pages, I currently have links to my products as H3 Tags. I also have useful guides displayed on the page with links useful articles we have written (they currently go to my news section). I am wondering if I should put those article links as additional H3 tags as well for added seo benefit or do I have to many tags as it is ?. A link to my Landing Page I am talking about is - http://goo.gl/h838RW Screenshot of my h1-h6 tags - http://imgur.com/hLtX0n7 I enclose screenshot my guides and also of my H1-H6 tags. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
How Do You Remove Video Thumbnails From Google Search Result Pages?
This is going to be a long question, but, in a nutshell, I am asking if anyone knows how to remove video thumbnails from Google's search result pages? We have had video thumbnails show up next to many of our organic listings in Google's search result pages for several months. To be clear, these are organic listings for our site, not results from performing a video search. When you click on the thumbnail or our listing title, you go to the same page on our site - a list of products or the product page. Although it was initially believed that these thumbnails drew the eye to our listings and that we would receive more traffic, we are actually seeing severe year over year declines in traffic to our category pages with thumbnails vs. category pages without thumbnails (where average rank remained relatively constant). We believe this decline is due to several things: An old date stamp that makes our listing look outdated (despite the fact that we can prove Google has spidered and updated their cache of these pages as recent as 2 days ago). We have no idea where Google is getting this datestamp from. An unrelated thumbnail to the page title, etc. - sometimes a picture of a man's face when the category is for women's handbags A difference in intent - user intends to shop or browse, not watch a video. They skip our listing because it looks like a video even though both the thumbnail and our listing click through to a category page of products. So we want to remove these video thumbnails from Google's search results without removing our pages from the index. Does anyone know how to do this? We believed that this connection between category page and video was happening in our video sitemap. We have removed all reference to video and category pages in the sitemap. After making this change and resubmitting the sitemap in Webmaster Tools, we have not seen any changes in the search results (it's been over 2 weeks). I've been reading and it appears many believe that Google can identify video embedded in pages. That makes sense. We can certainly remove videos from our category pages to truly remove the connection between category page URL and video thumbnail. However, I don't believe this is enough because in some cases you can find video thumbnails next to listings where the page has not had a video thumbnail in months (example: search for "leather handbags" and find www.ebags.com/category/handbags/m/leather - that video does not exist on that page and has not for months. Similarly, do a search for "handbags" and find www.ebags.com/department/handbags. That video has not been on that page since 2010. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SharieBags0 -
Are dropdown menus bad for SEO
I have an ecommerce shop here: http://m00.biz/UHuGGC I've added a submenu for each major category and subcategory of items for sale. There are over 60 categories on that submenu. I've heard that loading this (and the number of links) before the content is very bad for SEO. Some will place the menu below the content and use absolute positioning to put the menu where it currently is now. It's a bit ridiculous in doing things backwards and wondering if search engines really don't understand. So the question is twofold: (1) Are the links better in a bottom loading sidemenu where they are now? (2) Given the number of links (about 80 in total with all categories and subcategories), is it bad to have the sidemenu show the subcategories which, in this instance, are somewhat important? Should I just go for the drilldown, e.g. show only categories and then show subcategories after? Truth is that users probably would prefer the dropdown with all the categories and second level subcategories, despite the link number and placement.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | attorney1 -
Increasing Internal Links But Avoiding a Link Farm
I'm looking to create a page about Widgets and all of the more specific names for Widgets we sell: ABC Brand Widgets, XYZ Brand Widgets, Big Widgets, Small Widgets, Green Widgets, Blue Widgets, etc. I'd like my Widget page to give a brief explanation about each kind of Widget with a link deeper into my site that gives more detail and allows you to purchase. The problem is I have a lot of Widgets and this could get messy: ABC Green Widgets, Small XYZ Widgets, many combinations. I can see my Widget page teetering on being a link farm if I start throwing in all of these combos. So where should I stop? How much do I do? I've read more than 100 links on a page being considered a link farm, is that a hardline number or a general guideline?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rball10