Too many On-Page Links on a WP based Website
-
Hi,
I've already browsed through various of the Q&As on the "too many On-Page links" issue, but I would really need some advice concerning a WP Site with a dropdown navigation.
As outlined in the on-page report, every site has about 180 outgoing links, which pretty much is the number of site featured in the navigation. Even though the 100 link limit is somewhat outdated I'm still worried about the distribution of linkjuice from the starting page and how Google perceives the importance of the various pages.
Would it make sense to adapt the structure of the navigation, so that the starting page only links to the 5 category pages and the category pages only link to the detail pages they contain?
The site has good rankings for several pages and I assume that Google can tell that the large number of links is caused by the navigation. But with every page having appr. 180 links it may be difficult for Google to tell, which of those pages are the most important regarding internal link structure...
Looking foward to your opinion and insights!
Cheers,
Chris
-
If you decide you absolutely must use tags I recommend creating or buying a wordpress theme that only shows post excerpts on the tag pages. That should help with duplicate content.
Categories in WordPress are better for SEO b/c wordpress stores a description for categories and SEO plugins can grab this descrption and add it to the meta descrption tag in your posts HTML header.
-
No probs you too
-
Hi Craig,
that's exactly what I was thinking about, having 5 hub/category pages with the relvant pages in them. makes perfect sense
Thanks for the advice concerning the tags, I'll have a look at it!
Have a nice weekend!
Cheers,
Chris -
I see
I don't really think it's a massive problem but to improve it why dont you take out the drop downs so rather then everything being one click away its 2 clicks
For example turn the parent pages into hubs of that category and this will cut down total number of links on pages across the site.
I hope that made sense
Also I noticed your using tags, I advise against these but if your going to use them you should noindex, follow these pages I checked a few and they were indexed.
This of course can cause duplicate content issues.
-
Hi Craig,
thanks for the quick reply!
I see your point in putting Usability before SEO-related concerns
The site has thematically clear structure and pages are grouped into meaningful categories. The thing I am concerned about is the structure of the navigation itself.
For Example: Given the current Navigation, if you're on any detail page, you can select any other category pages or detail pages from other categories, thats why there are so many Links per Page. Of course, this is very convenient, as you can navigate from a 3rd level page of Category A to any other page in just one click.
The question now is, whether this type of navigation has a disadvantage in terms of On-Page Optimization, or if it doesn't really matter as Google can tell that the high number of links on every site is simply caused by the navigation.
I forgot to post the link, by the way: http:www.hlm.at/
-
Hey Christoph,
I think you should be more concerned by your users navigating the site rather than Google. I don't think it's really that important on the amount of link but rather the type of link and where they are on your site.
If I were you I would work on your site architecture and create a better navigation for your users and an organised site will of course be crawled better.
Also organising your site into a few categories will help the engines to sort and better understand your site and it's content but don't go over board and remember categories are a tool to help you organise your site, so pages shouldn't really need multiple categories.
Hope this helps
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
-
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 -
Page grader says we are keyword stuffing but we arn't. Page source shows different story.
Hi community! We have just run a page grader for the keyword 'LED Bulbs' on whichledlight.com and it comes up that we are keyword stuffing! However, a brief look at the source for the homepage and there's only 6 times that LED Bulbs pops up. We do have the non plural version of the word 'LED Bulb' on the page 27 times.. do we think that would contribute to the keyword stuffing? Thanks!!
On-Page Optimization | | TrueluxGroup0 -
Internal Links Catalog (too many links)
I have several car catalogs that I use to direct my customers to the parts for their vehicle. Example:http://www.mikesfuel.com/Acura_c_69.html My customers like the approach. They can easily find their vehicle, then scan the columns for the parts that they need. Each part number is a link and the part numbers are sometimes posted several times in one column. All of the links are internal to the web site. My fear is that this is going to be treated as a link farm. I have considered using a PDF catalog with links, but that is going to be hugely expensive. What do you think? Thanks for any help Mike
On-Page Optimization | | mikescarb0 -
On hover my links are with additional Parameters while links that are indexed are without additional parameters
On hover my links are with additional Parameters while links that are indexed are without additional parameters does it impact in a negative way. For ex: i have a site http://www.yoursite.com and Its internal pages that are linked to the site are in pattern of http://www.yoursite.com/jobs-in-india?xz=3_0_5 and these are the pages which are interlinked through out the site. When any user click the link they will land to the similar pages with additional parameter even on mouse hover any one can see the same link. while we have used Canonical, so pages that are getting indexed are http://www.yoursite.com/jobs-in-india. But my concern is: - To showing two different link as when Google crawler follow the site they will get the links with additional parameter while in its index its a URL without additional parameter so is there problem that we can encounter or is there any negative impact on ranking?
On-Page Optimization | | vivekrathore0 -
Internal Linking From Blog to Website
Hi all, I'm just seeking opinions on something an external company have told us about linking from our blog to our website... Our website is; www.XYZ.com and our blog is www.XYZ.com/blog I add content to the blog on an almost daily basis and generally link on average 3 times from the blog (internally) to a various relevant pages on our website. Today I was told that by doing this I am 'diluting' the link juice which I understand but don't agree with... All I am doing is a form of internal linking which as far as I am aware is a good on-page technique? Just curious to learn other people's view on this... Many thanks Andy
On-Page Optimization | | TomKing0 -
Why doe SEOmoz include my categories and subcategories when counting on page links?
Hi everyone, I am new to SEOMOZ, but it looks like really good program. I ran a report last week, and SEOMOZ says that out of 10001 pages, I hve a total of 9995 warnings. When I take a look at the breakdown, it says I have too many on page links. I removed the links from the bottom of each page, but my on page links are still over 100. Does this mean that I will have to get rid of categories and sub-categories in the navigation bar? Thanks, Don
On-Page Optimization | | ge01734000 -
Some of my pages are ranking for terms which I want other pages to rank for. What can I do to effectively switch the ranking?
Some of the pages are ranking for terms I have optimised other pages for. The pages which are ranking are quite rightly falling, because they aren't optimised for the terms they're showing for. However, I have pages which are optomised for those terms. How do I switch the SERPS to the page I want?
On-Page Optimization | | GlobalLingo1 -
Too Many On-Page Links
I recently took on a website design client and ran his website through a battery of tests using Pro to take a look at the crawl errors. One that seems to stump me is the error "Too many On-Page links" concerning his blog. (http://franksdesigns.com/wp/blog) This is the first time I've seen this error and am rather confused. The report says there are 104 links on this page. However, I'm having trouble grasping this concept or finding the 104 links. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you for your support!
On-Page Optimization | | WebLadder0