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This is an interesting question, and one that I looked into fairly recently.

A simplistic answer to your question would be that yes, more internal links will distribute link juice across your site much more evenly, like so: Home page (100%) -> 25 internal links (4% each). As opposed to something like: Home page (100%) -> 4 internal links (25% each).

However, to truly answer this question there is a bit more detail involved.

As with most things in web design, there is a trade-off. For example, take a concept like the mega-menu navigation you are currently using (i.e. a menu with loads of links in a drop down). There is an argument to say that mega-menu's are solid from a usability point of view, most particularly for e-commerce sites. This is because there is a vast amount of products to sift through, and getting to the one you want in as few clicks as possible is quite important.

The trade-off for using a mega-menu, in my opinion, is that it is quite poor in terms of link juice optimisation. This is because the Google algorithmn 'sees' the links from every single drop down as a live internal link - regardless of the hover effect.

In your 'funeral planning' drop down alone, there are 53 internal links that appear on every page. Essentially, every page on your website is linking to every other page, so the link juice is spread evenly. At a guess you have at least 300 internal links on the home page, which would translate to 0.33% of link juice per page.

• Please note this is a massive over simplification, because the algorithmn weights the links differently due to position. See #5 here on the following link (also bear in mind the date of the article!): http://moz.com/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links
• Also, a portion of link juice is 'lost' when passed, to prevent an infinite loop. An estimate is that a page only passes 85% around 85% of its total. Saying 100% means simpler maths to illustrate the point above

Now this is not to say that mega menus are a bad idea, it is just a trade-off in favour of Ux over internal link optimisation. In these situations you need to think what is best for your own specific situation.

Hope that helps

Oli

I suspect that this is more something the author is doing, rathering than Huffington Post itself....

Also, to expand your strategy a little, research the idea of the rule of thirds in social media.

This article explains it nicely.

Good luck!

Oli

I would agree with Takeshi that in this instance, a mega menu may not be the best option.

Contextual navigation is really what you should be after. That is a bit of a buzzword though, so I'll explain what I mean in more detail. In simple terms, contextual navigation means only showing navigational elements that you can deduce a user is interested in. This works both ways, in that you also shouldn't 'jump the gun' and show them links just in case they may want them..

To use an example from your site - if we hover over 'money'. There are 6 main sections, and all of the sub-pages from each of these sections also have links on the hover menu.

If you would like to move more towards the SEO side of the trade-off, why not remove the sub-page links? This would drastically reduce the number of internal links that appear on every page.

At a quick glance, the nav menu would go from several hundred links, down to 37. I feel there would only be a minimal loss in navigability doing this, because you also have a contextually based side bar menu. Some people believe that mega -menu's are worse for navigability, because it overloads the user with choice. Again I think that labelling something as good or bad (it is all situational), but depending on your situation and point of view it may even improve things!

An even bigger step towards the SEO side of the trade-off would be to remove the drop down menu entirely, and use 'hub pages'. For example, by this I mean that the actual 'Funeral Planning' page would be the primary method of navigating through to the 6 main sections. This would mean that the top nav consisted of only 7 links. Remember though, that depending on your goals, this may be a little too far in the SEO direction because it would make navigation a little more complex (a user would have to click a couple of times before getting to the desired section).

Use your knowledge of the big picture of the business to decide what is best - a slightly better navigation vs more tightly controlled link juice!

Oli