Which link is more valuable: the one in your nav, or the one in the content of your page? Now, how about if one of those in-content links is an image, and one is text? Not all links are created equal, and getting familiar with the details will help you build a stronger linking structure.
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Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about links in headers and footers, in navigation versus content, and how that can affect both internal and external links and the link equity and link value that they pass to your website or to another website if you're linking out to them.
So I'm going to use Candy Japan here. They recently crossed $1 million in sales. Very proud of Candy Japan. They sell these nice boxes of random assortments of Japanese candy that come to your house. Their website is actually remarkably simplistic. They have some footer links. They have some links in the content, but not a whole lot else. But I'm going to imagine them with a few more links in here just for our purposes.
It turns out that there are a number of interesting items when it comes to internal linking. So, for example, some on-page links matter more and carry more weight than other kinds. If you are smart and use these across your entire site, you can get some incremental or potentially some significant benefits depending on how you do it.
Do some on-page links matter more than others?
So, first off, good to know that...
I. Content links tend to matter more
...just broadly speaking, than navigation links. That shouldn't be too surprising, right? If I have a link down here in the content of the page pointing to my Choco Puffs or my Gummies page, that might actually carry more weight in Google's eyes than if I point to it in my navigation.
Now, this is not universally true, but observably, it seems to be the case. So when something is in the navigation, it's almost always universally in that navigation. When something is in here, it's often only specifically in here. So a little tough to tell cause and effect, but we can definitely see this when we get to external links. I'll talk about that in a sec.
II. Links in footers often get devalued
So if there's a link that you've got in your footer, but you don't have it in your primary navigation, whether that's on the side or the top, or in the content of the page, a link down here may not carry as much weight internally. In fact, sometimes it seems to carry almost no weight whatsoever other than just the indexing.
III. More used links may carry more weight
This is a theory for now. But we've seen some papers on this, and there has been some hypothesizing in the SEO community that essentially Google is watching as people browse the web, and they can get that data and sort of see that, hey, this is a well-trafficked page. It gets a lot of visits from this other page. This navigation actually seems to get used versus this other navigation, which doesn't seem to be used.
There are a lot of ways that Google might interpret that data or might collect it. It could be from the size of it or the CSS qualities. It could be from how it appears on the page visually. But regardless, that also seems to be the case.
IV. Most visible links may get more weight
This does seem to be something that's testable. So if you have very small fonts, very tiny links, they are not nearly as accessible or obvious to visitors. It seems to be the case that they also don't carry as much weight in Google's rankings.
V. On pages with multiple links to the same URL
For example, let's say I've got this products link up here at the top, but I also link to my products down here under Other Candies, etc. It turns out that Google will see both links. They both point to the same page in this case, both pointing to the same page over here, but this page will only inherit the value of the anchor text from the first link on the page, not both of them.
So Other Candies, etc., that anchor text will essentially be treated as though it doesn't exist. Google ignores multiple links to the same URL. This is actually true internal and external. For this reason, if you're going ahead and trying to stuff in links in your internal content to other pages, thinking that you can get better anchor text value, well look, if they're already in your navigation, you're not getting any additional value. Same case if they're up higher in the content. The second link to them is not carrying the anchor text value.
Can link location/type affect external link impact?
Other items to note on the external side of things and where they're placed on pages.
I. In-content links are going to be more valuable than footers or nav links
In general, nav links are going to do better than footers. But in content, this primary content area right in here, that is where you're going to get the most link value if you have the option of where you're going to get an external link from on a page.
II. What if you have links that open in a new tab or in a new window versus links that open in the same tab, same window?
It doesn't seem to matter at all. Google does not appear to carry any different weight from the experiments that we've seen and the ones we've conducted.
III. Text links do seem to perform better, get more weight than image links with alt attributes
They also seem to perform better than JavaScript links and other types of links, but critically important to know this, because many times what you will see is that a website will do something like this. They'll have an image. This image will be a link that will point off to a page, and then below it they'll have some sort of caption with keyword-rich anchors down here, and that will also point off. But Google will treat this first link as though it is the one, and it will be the alt attribute of this image that passes the anchor text, unless this is all one href tag, in which case you do get the benefit of the caption as the anchor. So best practice there.
IV. Multiple links from same page — only the first anchor counts
Well, just like with internal links, only the first anchor is going to count. So if I have two links from Candy Japan pointing to me, it's only the top one that Google sees first in the HTML. So it's not where it's organized in the site as it renders visually, but where it comes up in the HTML of the page as Google is rendering that.
V. The same link and anchor on many or most or all pages on a website tends to get you into trouble.
Not always, not universally. Sometimes it can be okay. Is Amazon allowed to link to Whole Foods from their footer? Yes, they are. They're part of the same company and group and that kind of thing. But if, for example, Amazon were to go crazy spamming and decided to make it "cheap avocados delivered to your home" and put that in the footer of all their pages and point that to the WholeFoods.com/avocadodelivery page, that would probably get penalized, or it may just be devalued. It might not rank at all, or it might not pass any link equity. So notable that in the cases where you have the option of, "Should I get a link on every page of a website? Well, gosh, that sounds like a good deal. I'd pass all this page rank and all this link equity." No, bad deal.
Instead, far better would be to get a link from a page that's already linked to by all of these pages, like, hey, if we can get a link from the About page or from the Products page or from the homepage, a link on the homepage, those are all great places to get links. I don't want a link on every page in the footer or on every page in a sidebar. That tends to get me in trouble, especially if it is anchor text-rich and clearly keyword targeted and trying to manipulate SEO.
All right, everyone. I look forward to your questions. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.
Hey, the big one I have always pondered is opening internal links in the same or new tab.
Whilst you say there is no direct advantage/disadvantage for going one way or the other in terms of link equity (which makes perfect sense), I often think that opening in the same tab is a better option but I see pros and cons to each option.
I'd be keen to get your thoughts on this with regards to elements other than link equity (whether direct or indirect influencers).
My thoughts are below.
Same Tab Pros
Same Tab Cons
New Tab Pros
New Tab Cons
I see most reputable SEO folks opening in the same tab and think you used to do the same?
Are you able to share your thoughts/reasoning for that?
Cheers,
Gill.
Well I personally think that people that are reading about seo are quite tech savvy. I never met anyone who knows about seo but doesn't know about the right click new tab. So I'm guessing that's the reason why seo bloggers do that. Personally before I was into blogging I used to feel 'offended' when a link opens a new tab like ya think i'm dumb ha xD. Anyways I think it depends on your niche whether you should make it open a new tab or not. If it's something related to programing/ internet stuff I'd just leave it at changing the page they will know how to right click if they want. If i'm writing about 'The benefits of cats for old people' type of article's maybe opening a new tab for a link wouldn't be a bad idea, in fact think it would make these type of people navigate better :D
Yeah I'm not really talking about this for SEO folks/tech savvy people, more for the general public. Most of whom I would guess don't use right click to open in a new tab. Also bear in mind more than 50% of website visits can come from mobile which means there is an even smaller chance that users will return to previous tabs when opening a new one. That also means there is no right click to open a new tab whilst remaining on the same one (as you can with desktop).
I believe Rand only referred to the way Google treats the two link types from a link weight perspective (link juice if you prefer), but it's an interesting topic either way.
Opening all links in a new tab is such a strange user experience to me, do you have examples of relatively large sites that do that?
We enabled TARGET BLANK to all links just a week ago on our Chinese site, but only there!
Apparently in China this is a thing and how they do it, mainly because the Internet is very slow in many parts of Mainland China. So people are now used to it and it's actually not easy to find Chinese sites that don't open links in new tabs.
Back to everyone else but China, I wish we'd have some data on how many users open their links in new tabs with the middle mouse button.
Yes that's what I meant by no 'direct' advantage/disadvantage either way. From a link equity/weight/juice perspective it's the same thing - but the different set ups could mean different results when thinking about none link equity elements of the algorithm (whether direct or indirect influencers).
That's really interesting re China. Definitely something to bear in mind when going international. Not just what works in your mind, but also what is common for a particular culture.
Booking.com (massive site) open links in new tabs which I think ends up in a big mess. Click any hotel here for example: https://www.booking.com/city/it/milan.html?
Re opening links in a new tab using right click, I often do it (unless I have no intention to keep reading the page I am clicking from). I wonder if a GA Event can be created to track that?
Just seen that Moz give users the option to open comment links (like the one above) in a new tab or not. Interesting that they are putting that in the users hands and not worrying either way. Update: they give the option but even when you tick 'Open in a new tab', it defaults to open in the same tab.
@Rand you've got some buggy stuff going on with comment editing/formatting :)
Our practice has always been to open links in a New Tab only for off-site links -- so that readers could access that information/resource without having to stop their experience on our site(s). Opening internal links in a new tab seems like a very cumbersome user experience.
The thing is, I also think it's bad UX to be reading an article/page then click an internal contextual link and be redirected away from the page you were reading (when link opens in the same tab). So I sometimes contradict my opinions and preference on thi! :(
I my mind, what you say about linking out could also cause issues.
Imagine someone lands on your page organically:
This is a topic which has always frustrated me as I'm not sure there is a right answer.
Me too. Navegabilty is our priority.
Agreed. Opening internal links in a new tab leads to weird UX IMO. It is our best practice to have the external links open in a new tab depending on the type of site. Heat mapping has shown us that very few people even click the external links so the point may be mute.
We open a new tab for external links only, as we want to make it easy to return to our site.
We go even further by making it undersized (1000x800px), scrollable and resizable only. No navigation.
That way they will naturally close the window when they are done reading that page and be back on ours.
That's a smart move and I like the idea, BUT it's not providing a great experience if you can't navigate on the next tab and forcing an action rather than presenting an option which I'm not a massive fan of as a user.
I think it's a creative idea though so sitting on the fence for now. :)
Got to also bear in mind that when we're linking out, we're passing link equity to other entities. If they are in any way competing with you in the SERPs (even if they don't do or sell the same thing but they rank for similar keywords), we're shooting ourselves in the foot and giving extra weight to our SERP competitors. That said I encourage linking out and keeping the web ecosystem alive with links.
Hi Gillon - a really interesting topic, and one that I think is a bit more about usability and user experience than SEO (though, important to keep in mind that UI+UX influence SEO fairly strongly these days, so maybe an indirectly important ranking factor).
FWIW, my recommendation is to do what serves users best. If that's opening in a new tab/window because the tab/window makes sense to be open temporarily and then to return to the original task, go for it. Otherwise, you're likely frustrating users by leaving a window/tab open and breaking the back button functionality. Google isn't going to be fooled by false metrics in this fashion, and users will only be more frustrated and less likely to share/return. Serve users first, and Google will generally reward you (at least, on UI/UX issues).
Hi Rand, Yes I think it's a blog topic in itself. I'm keen to write one about this, maybe you can publish it on Moz?! I will ping it to you when it's done.
I am thinking of the indirect advantages/disadvantages of better/worse UX rather than direct SEO influence.
I agree, serve users first and the rest will follow. I'm just still undecided what the best UX for this is though but guess it needs to be assessed on a case by case basis.
Cheers,
Gill.
Hi Rand,
I am reminded of Google's Reasonable Surfer patent as invented by Jeff Dean, which describes how much weight different links on a page might pass along. That patent (updated in 2016) is the one that can be found at:
Ranking documents based on user behavior and/or feature data
It's good hearing about the effect of such features from the perspective of an SEO.
Thanks Bill! Excellent reference :-)
Thanks for sharing the valuable post Rand, great insights . SEO experiments are helpful in creating new strategies but sometimes they are unreliable too. Not surprisingly, content links valued more but wondering about the links that are already in navigation and needs to be included in content as Rand said only first link counts. Is it doesn’t count the same multiple links for the same keyword in a post or for all different anchor texts for the same URL.
Overall, it’s about providing value to readers and proper structured data to bots.
What about automatically inserted links that are between paragraphs in the main text of the article?
This:
Paragraph 1 about how to grow Avocados.
Paragraph 2 about how to grow Avocados.
See related: Price of Avocados in Japan.
Paragraph 3 about how to grow Avocados.
Versus this:
Paragraph 1 about how to grow Avocados, read more about how to grow your own avocados.
Rest of paragraph 1
How do these two types of internal links compare?
Sounds good for the seo expert to get more from this article. Very interested and informative article about #backlinks quality, location and type.
When someone asked me to summarize this article, i would just explain like this in a brief words" only get backlinks from the content body, keep it visible, a link that is open in same page or it opens in another page it does not affect the quality, text links perform better than image links, and same link & anchor on many or most or all pages on a website tends to get you into trouble.
Thanks....
Well... I might just say it's more nuanced than that, and that never linking from the footer or header isn't smart either. Users expect certain navigation in the footer+header, and by not providing that, you can frustrate your visitors, which will lead to worse performance in SEO.
A question about the footer links.
Footer links are devalued, but that doesn't mean that they don't carry some SEO value?
For example, there is a website called colorlib.com - they make free WordPress themes and some of them are quite popular on WordPress.org. Each WordPress theme installation is linking back to colorlib.com, as a result - when you search for anything + wordpress theme ( "blog wordpress theme" ) - Colorlib is most probably going to pop up on the top results. My theory is that it's largely due to the massive amounts of footer backlinks that they've built and a few solid content links as well. Is that the case, or there is no amount of footer links can make you rise on Google to the #1 spot?
Interesting article, especially the point about anchor text on internal links not passing the second time. Often I will internal link to pages that are in my nav from new content I create but essentially the anchor text I am using doesn't pass any value because Google already crawled the link in my nav. I will definitely be testing that and seeing what the best approach will be regarding getting some benefits from intertal link anchor text.
Yeah - worth testing for sure. We haven't run that particular test in a couple years (as it was consistent for a decade before that). Internal anchor text doesn't typically pass all that much value (though certainly some), so it can be hard to get good test results without using nonsensical anchors.
Great WBF -- These are nuances that can be difficult to socialize within organizations and with clients. Your video explains it all clearly, with one exception -- Text vs. Image links for INTERNAL links wasn't mentioned.
Can you provide insights here as well?
Thanks!
Right! In general, text links will pass the most value. In the case of image links, the alt attribute is treated as the anchor text, but it's not as powerful an anchor signal as text-based anchors.
Fish,
Great WBF as always. I look forward to these every friday at lunch time. You never disappoint (but where can I get that shirt?).
I believe that one's from https://descendantofthieves.com/ (they have great stuff)
Rand the Man always coming through with the vast SEO know how which makes me look awesome to my boss and clinets. This video really sheded some light on areas I was wondering about in terms of value in certain places. I have abandoned the footer farm of links awhile ago, but did not realize the lack of value some of the links internally on a page would have if they are also in the navigation.
This also puts a point that someone does not need everypage under the moon on their nav to rank, and can either have a solid linking strategy for those non nav pages throughout content.
Over the years the WBF and also yourself have helped me understand the workings of these crazy search engines thanks.
Thanks Tim! Thrilled to be helpful
There was a guy living downstairs from me in Charlotte last year who I thought of as Rand Fishkin's twin. And all these years I bet y'all thought there was no way he had a twin.
Rand thx for the post. what are you thoughts on social links (outbound links from web page to Facebook, Twitter etc) do they carry any weight than a page that doesn’t
A very lightening post. There were things that were not very clear yet, as if you have several links from the same page, you will only count the first.
Thanks for the input.
Let's say I'm an attorney who specializes in a few different practice areas. So, on my main nav bar, I have a "Practice Areas" drop-down menu. "Family Law" is listed, and when you hover over it, specific practice areas like "Divorce" pop up.
Structurally, it's:
Is there any actual SEO value (beyond user experience) in linking to the "Divorce" page in a blog or other on-site content, since it's technically in the nav bar?
Yeah, there's probably still some - user/usage signals and traffic signals and the links you might earn from sending folks to those right pages are all still relevant here. The only thing you're likely missing out on is the anchor text benefit (but since you're getting that from the navigation, I wouldn't sweat it). Basic rule here is to link when and where it makes sense for visitors, and Google will sort out/give you credit for the rest.
In terms of an e-commerce site, if you have an ad (or e-spot, as some companies call them) on your product listing grid that links to a different, but relevant, category page does this have any SEO benefit even though it's not a link in the header, footer, or main navigation?
Hmm... Sorta like what Etsy does with ads atop their category pages? I would generally suspect those won't impact SEO much, unless they either draw users in and get higher engagement or piss users off and do the reverse.
Thanks Rand for this cool video! I didn't know about two links in the same page that would carry only the value of one of the two. So, should I have a "lean" navigation instead of a big one, since it will only carry the value of my lower SEO navigation?
See my reply above - I would lean to serving visitors > optimizing anchor text for Google rankings (that ends up usually providing the most benefit oddly enough).
Thanks for the clarification! I probably will refer to this article in one of my future blogs!
Hi Rand
Interesting post
I had never considered the idea that if an internal link has more or less weight if they are in the footer or header.
Regarding the external links I still do not know if it is 100% true that a link will have more weight the sooner it appears
Thank you very much for the post
Happy weekend
Hi Luis - yeah, generally true, though we haven't tested whether links higher up are always better. For example, I wonder if external links in header navigation might be treated more like footer links if they're on every page or manipulative in some way.
If i have a website that only sells 'blue widgets' is it likely to get devalued if most of my internal anchor text links on my blog posts are 'blue widgets'?
Well... Maybe. Depends how you're doing it. If the links are in-context and useful and they're simply describing the page(s) you're linking to, you're probably fine and likely even helping both users and Google understand the content of the linked-to page. But if it's anchor text that looks sketchy or manipulative (doesn't actually describe the page, isn't what users would expect, is way more prevalent in way too many places where it's not useful/needed) then you could be in trouble.
Hi Rand
I think Link in banner (link in GIF) is the most of power for seo, alot of keywords get on top by using banner backlinks
Im not sure footer link is devalued as you said
Feel free to test! Looks pretty devalued to us in many cases (though not all, of course). Re: banners with GIFs, beware that a lot of those may be interpreted as paid links (and many are), so use caution.
Very interesting. I learned again some new things I didn't know regarding linkbuilding listening to your video.
Excellent Bill. We always read header and footer links navigation impact but more than that all, you have very excellently described each and every point of the subject
Question 1
If we place a link in the main navigation for example “services”, and if we use again it in breadcrumb category structure as “product services” and both links redirect to servers.html, Is it good for seo?
Question 2
If link from multiple pages using different keywords into single page, Is it good for seo?
How much pages can we link like this?
If we link from all pages, may it cause Google penalty?
Hi Rand,
Thanks! It is such a great article.
I am aware that only first links get anchor but what about text directly around the link? Will google use this to add relevance or is this also only for the first link?
I've got a really basic question. For the image vs content links: If I have an image link that come before the caption link in the html, but there is not alt text on it (and they point to the same page), what happens then? Thanks!
First of all, thanks for the insightful post. Really great information.
I do have a question about the value of internal links to provide context for a product page.
So, is it more valuable to link from a product page to 1) a broad category/navigation page that will be relevant to every user but is broad and content poor, or 2) a more specific category page that won't be relevant to <i>every</i> user but contains content most relevant to the page being linked from?
Thanks again for all the great information,
Graham
One thing I'm curious about is what happens when you have a site that doesn't necessarily have a link to another site on every single page, but all of the major service pages redirect you. I have a couple of clients who want to keep old sites with high brand recognition active, but they have them set up with a home page and a contact us page, and then all their top nav. links to services take you to their new website. Is there any particular penalty that this could incur beyond simply siphoning off all their domain authority?
Interesting article, especially the point about anchor text on internal links not passing the second time. Often I will internal link to pages that are in my nav from new content I create but essentially the anchor text I am using doesn't pass any value because Google already crawled the link in my nav. BUT MY PROBLEM IS THE LINKBUILDINGRRRRR, JJAJAJAJ
Hi Rand!
Interesting reading but gives a question. What is your experience with links from RSS?
thanks to articles like this, anyone can advance in seo positioning.
is a very interesting and easy to understand article, since, those who have only a short time in the sector we need the help of the veterans.
I will follow your publications closely so that I can continue to grow and grow in the field of seo positioning.
Thank you.
Thank you for the value you bring, Rand. Just like many folks here, I didn't realize that the links in the header negate any additional links to the same page that might be found in the body of the page. I take it that all body content links should point to 2nd-level pages and deeper, which would improve the crawling of the website anyway.
We recently changed our wordpress site to multisite to facilitate the need for different locations. We had a sitewide anchor text footer link going to our headquarters location page. Months later, after adding in page anchor text links on the root install to the same page as the footer, and doing fetch requests we absolutely observed an increase in rankings.
What about automatically inserted links that are between paragraphs in the main text of the article?
This:
Paragraph 1 about how to grow Avocados.
Paragraph 2 about how to grow Avocados.
See related: Price of Avocados in Japan(link)
Paragraph 3 about how to grow Avocados.
Versus this:
Paragraph 1 about how to grow Avocados, read more about how to grow your own avocados(link).
Rest of paragraph 1
How do these two types of internal links compare?
Awesome as always, Rand!
When it comes to in-text links, do you think there is a difference between caption links and links that are separate to them content (e.g. sometimes I see a link between paragraphs, placed similar to an ad) VS links that are within a sentence of the content, so surrounded by other words?
Thanks Sir for giving this important information about link submission in case of on page and off page.
because I didn't know clearly about that how much time a link (Same Link) will be count at the time of BackLink Creation.
About image-Alt-attribute vs. anchortext: I made a small experiment to test this some time ago. What I found out was that Google managed to pick up anchortext AND Alt-attribute for the same target even though I had the textlink first in the text.
https://www.google.de/search?q=seo+sechshypzwo shows /zielseiten/zielseite15.html on www.das-seo-experiment.de even though there is a textlink to that page with anchortext "sechshypeins" first.
However, the first link counts-rule seems to apply to two textlinks or two image links ... strange.
Thanks Rand for this cool video! I didn't know about two links in the same page that would carry only the value of one of the two.
Hi Rand,
Thank you so much for the great insights. I always look forward to Whiteboard Friday, as I know I'm going to learn something new :)
I have a question, though. It's regarding multiple links to the same page. How does Google treat the links to the different parts of the same page?
For example, I have a post about 20 website mistakes. Each section has an ID specified so that I have a separate link to each of them, as in url-to-my-post#mistake1.
It does make sense from the UX perspective to have an internal link to a particular section so that if I mention drop-down menus in another post, for example, people can jump right to the particular paragraph of the 20 website mistakes post.
What does Google think of that? Good idea, bad idea?
Thanks so much in advance,
Gill
Links given on top or bottom side of a website effects a lot on the website seo at it configures the outbound link from the website.
Hi Rand,
Thanks for this WBF.
While I knew most of this from previous reading, i did not realise that the navigational links superseded the text links.
This actually changes my whole linking strategy. I need to review the navigational titles to optimise them.
Previously I went for short and succinct titles but now I need to make sure they are also formatted correctly for SEO, as I can't rely on the body text links.
Thanks for enlightening me!!!
Cheers,
Eric
Not necessarily Eric! If you make your navigational links look sketchy or spammy, Google might remove the anchor text value they pass, or diminish your site's rankings, and worse, your visitors might click them less which will lead to much less engagement and far fewer customers/conversions. It's a balance you'll have to strike between useful+descriptive vs. ideal anchor text. I generally recommend going for the former over the latter in nav.
Another great whiteboard Friday!
Thanks Rand
Hi Rand, thanks for insightfull post. I am aware of the only first link gets the anchor text value - though the navigational ones sometimes slip my mind. What about text directly around the link? Will google use this to add relevance or is this also only for the first link?
Hi Rand, very important topic on today's WBF. I was experimenting with links on our website and this video helps me a lot in understanding how to place those most important links. Thank you!
Hey Rand,
cool WBF! I have a question related to internal linking in point V - multiple links to the same URL:
You're talking about anker text value here. But only that, right? I'll still be getting link equity from those links, will I?
Or are you saying content links to pages that are already in my navigation are worthless?! That wouldn't make sense from a google standpoint, cause they still might be of value to the user.
Yeah - see my reply above. Basically, you still might get other kinds of value (and the indirect value of the traffic you send to those pages). Do it for users, not for Google.
Very in-depth lesson, Rand! About the position of links in the HTML code, though, I still do have the follwing question: Does the good old gray-hat SEO trick about moving SEO-relevant content (here: internal links) high up into the code, but then moving it below the fold (or even randering it invisible) during page rendering by using CSS commands still work? If yes, I could implant the whole footer on a place high up in the HTML code, but then make it appear in the footer of the rendered page with an appropriate stylesheet? Thank you.
Thanks Rand. I found the "Links in footers often get devalued" part particularly interesting. I didnt realise that footer links that are not also in primary nav, get little to no benefit.
I never thought off this footer link thing! Awesome!
Thanks for a great post, Rand! The video also provides an excellent touch and was incredibly enjoyable. I never considered the importance of footer links, nor did I consider adding additional navigation in such ways that might benefit SEO. I'm assuming in regards to Wordpress this is all applicable, and will be testing it out on my own projects.
Hi Rand. Greatet post.
Are you mentioned the CSS website quality right. How can I do a test to measure it? I know that we have W3C test for html, but if I'm using an framework? Do it any impact in CSS/HTML quality? And about websites that use images linking to another important pages. What's the impact?
A big hug from Brazil.
See my comment above in regards to images vs. text links.
Regarding CSS - you can use https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/60664... from Google to help with seeing a page through Google's eyes and making sure your CSS is showing how you want.
I agree with this. I tested the same concept in my website srinimf that when the people click on the text links which I have given quick reference to readers, really that day I found my page views are more. Really good interesting and thoughtful.
Yeah - and often the pages that are more visited also get more ranking weight in Google (correlation or causation, hard to say, but good to be aware of the connection).
In the case of an image and caption linking to the same page, it makes sense to link the image for usability, but if you set it to a nofollow link would the second link, with good anchor text, then pass more weight?
I have a question about V. On pages with multiple links to the same URL? What if I acquire a link from another domain pointing towards two or three pages within my domain, but they are all different pages. Will Google only notice the first Anchor text or will all 3 be noticed by Google?
Hey Rand,
Thank you for sharing the importance of Header and footer linking in SEO. A healthy navigation structure is really worth for any website. But how you should use footer links, just mentioned beautifully. Thank you buddy to share valuable write-up. Looking forward to create something new strategy to get rank on top realtor for fastexpert.com .
I had this doubt long time ago: II. What if you have links that open in a new tab or in a new window versus links that open in the same tab, same window?
Good to know that it doesn't matter. Finally I don't have to worry about if I was doing it right or not.
Thank you
M
I wouldn't say it doesn't matter. It matters a lot to usability and good usability means visitors have a positive experience with your website which has a knock on effect in terms of SEO. So whilst not a direct impact on SEO, the choice you make on this could/should have an indirect effect.
Yes sure! I am using "new window" only when I consider that the user wants to continue in the same page and just go to the new page for a little extra information.
For example in a transactional page I want them to stay in there (not going directly to each link their click on). So the links of "more information" of each service open in a new window.
Thank you for your help.
No worries!
Hi Rand,
A bit late to the party on this one seeing as it's almost a week old..
In regards to navigation links being counted as the first and only links to a particular age, how does this square with nav links that are accessible only from a dropdown? For example, our nav contains a link labelled 'What We Do' which leads to the /what-we-do/ page, however if you hover over 'What We Do' a whole more links drop down, such as a link to our 'Search Engine Optimisation' page.
Does Google also see this link as the first link despite being behind a dropdown? Whenever we write a blog post on a particular subject, say SEO, we'll link it back to our SEO service page in order to say to Google, "Hey, you know we have that SEO service page? Well we've written some more content about it, and you can see it's related to this service page because we're internally linking to it." If that makes sense.
However, the implication of what you're saying, if I'm reading it right, is that the blog is already linking to the SEO page from the nav anyway. In fact, every blog we write is linking to it because of the nav, which makes linking to our SEO page from SEO blogs redundant.
Thanks,
John
So I've just scrolled up a bit and seen Paul Watson's question, which I think is basically the same and you answered it...
John
Okay I am like super confused about something, and it's been causing an intense debate among our SEO Team. Let me try to explain the issue as well as I can, and then maybe you can offer your two cents on the matter.
If you have a link to a certain "top level" page in the primary (i.e. site-wide navigation), and you are also linking to that page from the body content on the homepage using a keyword-rich anchor text, is this second link going to pass on any authority or offer any value to that "top level" page? Or is the bot just going to regard the link (along with its anchor text) to that page present in the primary navigation while disregarding the link in the body content completely, or is the link in the body content on the homepage going to help that "top level" page by passing some degree of authority to the page?
If the Google bot is indeed going to only take the primary navigation links (and their anchor texts) into regard, then isn't that going to be counter-productive since the primary navigation (and therefore those links and anchor texts) will be present on every single page, and having the exact-match keyword-rich anchor texts pointing to a page trigger the penguin penalty?
I hope I was able to explain my question clearly. :)
Yes I think you explained your question clearly, because I have the same one and I inmediatly thought "hey, this guy here is wondering the same as me!"
I hope you (we) get an answer :)
I've already lost hope of getting an answer :)
I don't think anyone really knows this for sure. We can make assumptions and run tests but there are too many variables and other factors contributing to a ranking page that it's almost impossible to correlate SERP movements directly with internal link attributes. I'm sure many would disagree but if they can prove it down to a single attribute/factor I would be incredibly impressed.
In my opinion, subsequent links in the body could/should/do pass some authority to the target page even if you are already linking to said page via your primary navigation.
Otherwise, if not the case, Google would be shooting themselves in the foot. Let's say your internal navigation menu link to your main selling page has the menu anchor text 'Buy'. Nice and neat in terms of design, but buy what? That doesn't really help Google understand what's on that page. The user knows as they are on a website all about electric bikes.
So if you had a contextual body link which had the anchor text 'compare electric bikes' linking to that same page, you would be doing search engines a massive favour to help them understand what the page is about - buying electric bikes! Therefore, I think Google understands that navigational links may not always tell the full story and that they could get better context from more descriptive body links. Disclaimer: this is based on common sense rather than any testing.
Look at keyword rich internal footer links for example - in the past they definitely helped pages rank, then when people went over the top and spammed the hell out of them, Google didn't like it as it was another way to game the system so it then became a big no no and could get you penalised in some way. That wouldn't happen unless it did something to your ranking efforts. Those footer links were/are almost always additional links to pages you're already linking to in the primary nav.
Therefore, in my opinion all internal links can have an impact (sure there are some studies on that) but it's likely that the lower they are on the page the less impact/authority they have/pass. I think you should also think heavily about how your internal links help your users and give them better navigation options = better engagement = better rankings.
Thank you a lot for your answer Gillon, definitely your common sense makes sense :)
I did not realize that when linking to the same page the subsequent anchor text would not be factored in. That's a really good insight, thanks Rand!