Controlling PageRank vs flat site architecture
-
Hey all.
Here's the scenario. I have this pretty trusted site with a relatively high PR. The navigation menu has around 300 links. But this is because it is a CSS menu that drills down into subcategories.
Now, would restricting the amount of links in this menu be beneficial? I am not worried about any subcategory pages not being crawled or indexed, but I am concerned that subcategory pages will not receive as high of PageRank if they are not linked to directly from the home page, thereby lowering the ranking potential. Even with new pages that are created they receive a PR of 5 if linked to from the home page.
But I'm also thinking that toning down the menu size would be beneficial by funneling more PageRank to category pages and increasing the likelihood of ranking for some core head/middle terms.
I have seen sites that externalize the menu in JavaScript files and disallow it in Robots.txt to prevent too much PageRank from linking out, but SEO isn't really a one-solution-fits-all in my experience.
I may try a test. Externalizing the menu may also increase the relevance for pages because I won't have a bunch of other content on the page not relevant to that page's specific keywords.
Anyone with experience in this arena? I would love to hear your input.
Thanks
-
I'm sure you're well versed in how Page Rank works, but some times it's good to have someone else explain it with a metaphor. And what comes to mind is Ian's old post on this here:
http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2010/09/pagerank-without-math.htm
Following his line of thought on the subject, I'd say yes overall restricting the amount of links in the menu will be beneficial. Some of your sub-sub pages may lose some PR value, but it will also likely increase the PR value of your main pages, and give you a good chance of ranking higher for more competitive keyword terms.
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
-
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
On 1 of our sites we have our Company name in the H1 on our other site we have the page title in our H1 - does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1, H2 and Page Tile
We have 2 sites that have been set up slightly differently. On 1 site we have the Company name in the H1 and the product name in the page title and H2. On the other site we have the Product name in the H1 and no H2. Does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1 and H2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CostumeD0 -
Troubled QA Platform - Site Map vs Site Structure
I'm running a Q&A forum that was built prioritizing UX over SEO. This decision has cause a bit of a headache as we're 6 months into the project with 2278 Q&A pages with extremely minimal traffic coming from search engines. The structure has the following hiccups: A. The category navigation from the main Q&A page is entirely javascript and only navigable by users. B. We identify Google bots and send them to another version of the Q&A platform w/o javascript. Category links don't exist in this google bot version of the main Q&A page. On this Google version of the main Q&A page, the Pinterest-like tiles displaying individual Q&As are capped at 10. This means that the only way google bot can identify link juice being passed down to individual QAs (after we've directed them to this page) is through 10 random Q&As. C. All 2278 of the QAs are currently indexed in search. They are just indexed very very poorly in SERPs. My personal assumption, is that Google can't pass link juice to any of the Q&As (poor SERP) but registers them from the site map so it gets included in Google's index. My dilemma has me struggling between two different decisions: 1. Update the navigation in the header to remove the javascript and fundamentally change the look and feel of the Q&A platform. This will allow Google bot to navigate through Expert category links to pass link juice to all Q&As. or 2. Update the redirected main Q&A page to include hard coded category links with 100s of hard coded Q&As under each category page. Make it similar, ugly, flat and efficient for the crawling bots. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I need to find a solution as soon as possible.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TQContent0 -
301 from one site to another
I have two e-commerce websites and i'm going to remove some products from website as requested by a supplier and sell them only on one site. Is it a good idea to 301 redirect the pages from site 1 to site 2?? Thanks for your help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Aikijeff0 -
Mobile Site Outranking Main Site
Hi, We have recently been hit with a problem regarding our mobile site, where it is outranking our main site. This is causing a drop in orders and ranknings for our main site. It would appear that google has indexed our mobile site and so the two are now competing against each other. Our main site is on a .co.uk and our mobile site on a .mobi, but we have now taken down the mobile site until we get this sorted. Does anyone else have any experience of this happening and how to stop it happening again? Thanks Steve
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Steve251 -
Splitting a Site into Two Sites for SEO Purposes
I have a client that owns a business that really could be easily divided into two separate business in terms of SEO. Right now his web site covers both divisions of his business. He gets about 5500 visitors a month. The majority go to one part of his business and around 600 each month go to the other. So about 11% I'm considering breaking off this 11% and putting it on an entirely different domain name. I think I could rank better for this 11%. The site would only be SEO'd for this particular division of the company. The keywords would not be in competition with each other. I would of course link the two web sites and watch that I don't run into any duplicate content issues. I worry about placing the redirects from the pages that I remove to the new pages. I know Google is not a fan of redirects. Then I also worry about the eventual drop in traffic to the main site now. How big of a factor is traffic in rankings? Other challenges include that the business services 4 major metropolitan areas. Would you do this? Have you done this? How did it work? Any suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MSWD0 -
Site #2 beats site #1 in every aspect?
Hey guys, loving SEOMoz so far and will definitely continue my subscription after the free trial. I have a question however, which I am really confused about. When researching my primary keyword, I have found that the second ranked site beats the top site in every single aspect, apart from domain age, which is almost 6 years for the top one and 6 months for the second. When I say every single aspect, I mean everything. More authority for the page and domain, more links, more anchor text links, more authoritive links, more social signals, more relevant links, better domain (although second ranked site is a .net), better MozRank, better MozTrust etc.... I have noticed though, that in the UK SERPs, those sites are switched, so #2 is actually #1. Could it be that the US SERPs just haven't updated yet, or am I missing something completely different.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | darrenspeed1 -
On-Site Optimization Tips for Job site?
I am working on a job site that only ranks well for the homepage with very low ranking internal pages. My job pages do not rank what so ever and are database driven and often times turn to 404 pages after the job has been filled. The job pages have to no content either. Anybody have any technical on-site recommendations for a job site I am working on especially regarding my internal pages? (Cross Country Allied.com)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0