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.
-
Someone has an answer to this simple question? I have the same doubt.
-
My question is mostly directed about the impact on search engines, not about clickthrough ratios, etc. although I appreciate the comments. I've decided to potentially offer a submenu on the top horizontal area instead of optionally placing it on the side, which may not be as obvious. Some say it's fine there but let's say the submenu seemed like a good offering. The issue is whether all those links placed before content will have an effect on SEO. I have seen repeatedly discussions about how having your most important content up at the top as high as possible is most important. Having this many links above the main content is a big question mark - and that's the question here:
Q: Since a submenu will have at least 70+ links in it, is it an SEO liability if it is placed before the main content on a page loads?
-
Another point is the way the menus display and the speed in which they drop down. Along with the colours of the text which can also be a very important factor in click through ratios.
-
You want to link to as many pages from the home page as possible. Gary makes a good point that people do think they have to choose a child menu item when they see a dropdown.
But as a SEO point of view drop downs are fine. And as I said get as many pages linked from the home page as possible
http://perthseocompany.com.au/seo/tutorials/a-simple-explanation-of-pagerank -
I would say you will not have any problems from an SEO point of view but from my experience showing new clients and people new to sites with the drop down menus they can be misleading.
The drop down reveals the pages but the main page that is acting as the parent of the other pages is sometimes overlooked as people don't realise they can still click on that.
I speak to people on the phone - hundreds of people and show them sites and time and time again I have to remind them they can click on the main parent button .
We are considering changing this as a result.
-
I believe that google is smart enough to tear the wrapper off of a website in a way that leaves naked content.
While a lot of people do what you are proposing and may gain some benefit from it, I think that the benefit is very small.
It's another case (in my opinion) of allowing the minute details of SEO to have an undo level of control over how you run your website.
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
-
Pagination, Javascript & SEO
Hi I need some help identifying whether we need to rethink the way we paginated product pages, On this page http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/workbenches when clicking page 1,2, etc - we have javascript to sort the results, the URL displayed and the URL linked to are different. e.g. The URL for these paginated pages is for example: page2 http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/workbenches#productBeginIndex:30&orderBy:5&pageView:list& Then the arrows either side of pagination, link to the paginated landing page e.g. http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/workbenches?page=3 - this is where the rel/prev details are - done for Google However - when clicking on this arrow, the URL loaded is different again - http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/workbenches#productBeginIndex:60&orderBy:5&pageView:list& & doesn't take you http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/workbenches?page=3 I did not set this up, but I am concerned that the URL http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/workbenches?page=3 never actually loads, but it's linked to Google can crawl it. Is this a problem? I am looking to implement a view all option. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
URL structure for SEO
Hi Mozzers, I have a site which is a combination of product pages, and news and advice pages that relate to the products. How would you approach the URL structure for this, following SEO best practice? Approach 1 Product pages:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | A_Q
www.website.com/product-category/product-page News and advice pages:
www.website.com/product-category/product-page/news-and-advice-story-1
www.website.com/product-category/product-page/news-and-advice-story-2
etc or Approach 2 Product pages:
www.website.com/product-category/product-page News and advice pages:
www.website.com/news/product-category/news-and advice-story-1 (with internal linking to relevant product page)
www.website.com/news/product-category/news-and advice-story-2 (with internal linking to relevant product page)
etc Or would a different approach be better?0 -
Is it bad for SEO to have a page that is not linked to anywhere on your site?
Hi, We had a content manager request to delete a page from our site. Looking at the traffic to the page, I noticed there were a lot of inbound links from credible sites. Rather than deleting the page, we simply removed it from the navigation, so that a user could still access the page by clicking on a link to it from an external site. Questions: Is it bad for SEO to have a page that is not directly accessible from your site? If no: do we keep this page in our Sitemap, or remove it? If yes: what is a better strategy to ensure the inbound links aren't considered "broken links" and also to minimize any negative impact to our SEO? Should we delete the page and 301 redirect users to the parent page for the page we had previously hidden?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jnew9290 -
Menu Structure & SEO
Hi I have been trying to decide whether we need to change our menu structure http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/ We have a lot of subcategories which are not in the menu structure and for SEO I wonder whether its best to have menu drop downs, so if a customer hovers over one category, it will display all the subcategories within this. I am concerned that sub categories we are trying to rank are many levels away from the homepage e.g If you want to find leather office chairs from the homepage, you have to go to the 'More categories' link, then choose seating > office seating > leather office seating. Users need to do a lot of navigating before seeing what we offer. I would prefer if a user could see these options in the menu when they hover over it. Does anyone think this would help SEO or just customer journey? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
SEO Benefit to SSL Certificate
Our site does not have an SSL certificate. I have read that in the process of adding one of URLs need to be redirected and that some link equity can be lost. Implementing an SSL certificate sounds somewhat complicated and far from risk free. Is there a tangible SEO benefit to upgrading to SSL? Will doing so help SEO in a tangible manner that justifies the cost, time and aggravation? Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan12 -
Django and SEO - Multicountry site - Is Django really SEO friendly?
Hi Everyone, Our client is requesting that we use Django for her project. I am really uneasy about this for several reasons. The client wants a multi-country site that is completely SEO friendly. I love Wordpress and if I had to do this project it would be a Wordpress site with WPML + Yoast plugins site. Questions Is Django SEO friendly and what "plugins" should I be using? Is there a multi-country plugin for Django that keeps or adds typical SEO features? Can you recommend any great articles? Any example sites would be GREATLY appreciated Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carla_Dawson0 -
Bad site migration - what to do!
Hi Mozzers - I'm just looking at a site which has been damaged by a very poor site migration. Basically, the old URLs were 301'd to a page on the new website (not a 404) telling everyone the page no longer existed. They did not 301 old pages to equivalent new pages. So I just checked Google WMT and saw 1,000 crawl errors - basically the old URLs. This migration was done back in February, since when traffic to the website has never recovered. Should I fix this now? Is it worth implementing the correct 301s now, after such a timelapse?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Multiple blogs for seo
I have signed up for some rather expensive lawyer directories that have very high domain PR, 's of 6 or 7 . Some of these allow you to make blog posts or articles on their site which should be good for SEO because of the high domain PR. I understand that if I do a lot of posts on one of these blogs with links back to my site, I should rapidly reach the point of diminishing returns because they are all coming from the same domain. Therefore, I plan to mix up my blo posts betwee several of these sites and also rewrite them and post them on my own site's blog. My question is this, if I post on any of these sites and I link back to internal pages of my site, and not to the home page, does this offset the "diminishing returns" factor? Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | diogenes0