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.
-
Here is a link to a screenshot: http://imgur.com/t0fIS
-
I don't know if that did it or not... but I would put 'em back, give it a couple of months, and see what happens.
If there were no other changes then the logic behind this being the culprit is strong.
-
Hi,
Do you have a version or a screen shot of the old format ? (as the drop in rankings still might not be correlated with those changes ).
But to answer your questions: Yes, the "real estate", the area, placement of the links within a page is very very important.
The lowest level are the footer links. Body, in content links are also split as importance in above the fold and under the fold. Side bar links are between the two (footer and body). Top and navigation links are very important.
Basically it's based on how a user can reach those and how much "call to action" those links hold - it make sense that top links are considered important as user will actually click on those - same with in content links.
For this reason - how people are clicking in those links - the number of link per page is also an important factor.
if you've removed some links - the other should and will send more Page Rank as the Page Rank (PR) of the page will be splited to a lower number overall.
We also had a similar issue when links moved in a different area of the page impacted, in a negative way several rankings for both the pages linked from the home pages (the ones that we've moved the links) and the home page it self.
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
-
What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?
Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?
On-Page Optimization | | mbmozmb0 -
Unique Pages with Thin Content vs. One Page with Lots of Content
Is there anyone who can give me a definitive answer on which of the following situations is preferable from an SEO standpoint for the services section of a website? 1. Many unique and targeted service pages with the primary keyword in the URL, Title tag and H1 - but with the tradeoff of having thin content on the page (i.e. 100 words of content or less). 2. One large service page listing all services in the content. Primary keyword for URL, title tag and H1 would be something like "(company name) services" and each service would be in the H2 title. In this case, there is lots of content on the page. Yes, the ideal situation would be to beef up content for each unique pages, but we have found that this isn't always an option based on the amount of time a client has dedicated to a project.
On-Page Optimization | | RCDesign741 -
Can you canonical from one domain page to a different domain page
We are a boating site and have our main site with all it's products. We have an engine section within our main site. But we also have an outside domain, specific to a certain manufacturer of engines. So we want our customers to still find the engine information for this manufacturer within our main site, as well as find the manufacturer targeted engine site in the SERPS. My question is this: Can I canonical those pages within our main site to pages on the outside domain? Or does are canonicals to be used only within the same domain? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | tdawson090 -
If I put 'keyword/url' combination to 'stop run weekly', will it dissapear from the summary page in the on-page grader?
The summary page of the on-page grader chooses the keyword and url combination itself. Now if I choose another combination, I would like the former to dissapear from the summary page. The only option is 'stop running weekly'. But will it disappear from the list also?
On-Page Optimization | | jongeneelbv0 -
Would I be safe canonicalizing comments pages on the first page?
We are building comment pages for an article site that live on a separate URL from the article (I know this is not ideal, but it is necessary). Each comments page will have a summary of the article at the top. Would I be safe using the first page of comments as the canonical URL for all subsequent comment pages? Or could I get away with using the actual article page as the canonical URL for all comment pages?
On-Page Optimization | | BostonWright0 -
Jquery for Header
Hi, I am using a Header template designed in jQuery, its having a small script. i woud like to know is there any bad impact on the website if I use Jquery. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | younus0 -
Canonical links
My website is relatively new, January. We climbed steadily to 6th for our search term then overnight rocketed to 1st. This only lasted a week and have been stuck at 9th ever since. When I use the SEO Moz tools our site should theoretically be top...I only joined today btw. Anyway in Google webmaster tools I noticed it said I had duplicate title tags, when I checked to see what the pages were- it was my home page! Google also seems to have cached two versions of our homepage, the root domain and the Default.aspx page. Now I have fixed this canonical linking issue today (using canonical link tag and 301s) so time will tell but has anyone got any first hand experience of this issue? Was it a big factor? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | SplashBacksNI0 -
Is anchor text link juice passed in internal links?
Let's say I have www.bobswidgets.com. If I have "widgets for sale in tuscon arizona' be the anchor text on an internal link on www.bobswidgets.com/page1 which goes to www.bobswidgets.com/page2 - does the value of the anchor text (widgets for sale in tuscon arizona) get passed internally? External links pass the value of the anchor text but do internal links?
On-Page Optimization | | qlkasdjfw0