Are menu links considered spammy?
-
Hi,
I'm wondering if having a footer menu with keyword links is considered spam? It makes sense to me to have your keywords and links to relevant pages on each page.
Thanks
-
Spam-A-Rama! hahah
Thanks Dana, makes perfect sense!
-
Hi Memoz, I think this completely depends on how it's done. Footers are a completely normal and expected part of Web design. For example, when you go to a new site you've never been to before, you almost expect to find "About Us" and "Contact Us" links in the footer. You also expect to find some redundant navigation, like "main products" or "clearance items."
Now, if you have a footer that does something like this:
Used Cars Seattle
Used Car West Seattle
Used Cars East Seattle
Used Cars Bellingham
Used cars northeast Seattle
Used Cars North Seattle
and so on....
Yes, I'd say Spam-A-Rama! Probably not a great idea.
Trust your instinct. If you stop at some point and think to yourself, "Self, this is looking mighty spammy," then, it's probably spammy and don't do it.
Can anyone say for sure what Google will see as spam and penalize and what it will leave alone? No. So I can't tell you what Google will or won't do and how Google will or won't view your content. I'm just sayin' trust your gut.
I hope that helps!
Dana
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
-
Use External Links
Hey 🙂 I noticed when analysing my pages that Moz gives the following advice about adding external links to my articles; "On any page specifically targeting a keyword, link externally to at least one (and possibly more than one) relevant, trusted resources as a best practice." As a small business I work pretty damn hard to get visitors to my website, so why on earth would I want to go to all that trouble just to send them away again to a trusted resouce? Secondly, what exactly is a "trusted resource"? Can I simply use search and use the top competitor, for example Moz or Wikipedia and does the anchor need to be an exact match or will a partial suffice. I say this because I already have the top spot for my longtail, so an exact match would be pointless. And lastly, I notice that pretty much all quality sites use external links to open in the same window i.e. not target=_blank, I never thought of it before today, but now that I'm considering using external linking in my articles I guess it's important to know the answer - i.e. Is this a best practice and does this give any seo benefit? Cheers, Lee :)
On-Page Optimization | | LeeC0 -
Form Only Pages Considered No Content/Duplicate Pages
We have a lot of WordPress sites with pages that contain only a form. The header, sidebar and footer content is the same as what's one other pages throughout the site. Each form page has a unique page title, meta description, form title and questions but the form title, description and questions add up to probably less than 100 words. Are these form pages negatively affecting the rankings of our landing pages or being viewed as duplicate or no content pages?
On-Page Optimization | | projectassistant0 -
Should links on a family bar be no follows?
I have a network of sites that we use a family bar for to get the user to where they want to go but as I am looking at my link profile, i keep on seeing these links everywhere. (DUH, of course) Question is, should these links be no follow? Could these links hurt me?
On-Page Optimization | | SBRMarketing0 -
"City page" links in footer of home page: Spammy?
Is listing a bunch of links to city pages in the footer of a home page considered "spammy" to Google? (ie- Chicago Alarms, Illinois Alarms, Naperville Alarms, etc.) What are the negative affects this might have on ranking, if any?
On-Page Optimization | | MChi0 -
Crazy # of Inbound Links
using open site explorer I see that my pages have a ridiculous amount of inbound links. I assume it is recording the same link from every page of the website through the menu somehow? Like the about us page has 200+ inbound links!!! ahh.. Is there a way to prevent this besides like.. no-following your own menu? Or is that what your supposed to do.. ~~Confused.
On-Page Optimization | | Earthsaver0 -
Should I nofollow all my outbound links?
I've read a lot of stuff and I can't get a good answer about this. Now I'm reading Wordpress 3 - Search Engine Optimization, and the writer says that less outbound dofollow links you have, better for you. What is the best practice in this subject? Should I really nofollow more than 80% of all my outbound links? Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | izaiasalmeida0 -
Too many on page links
Our home page (and 1400 of our other pages) have well over 100 links, going beyond the recommend amount. Our competitors have less on page links (to other pages on their site) and way more link popularity so we are trying to figure out the best solution for this without hurting our sites conversions and usbaility.
On-Page Optimization | | iAnalyst.com0 -
Should I put a No follow on each link in a Javascript dropdown menu?
I have a javascript dropdown menu on every page of my site. It lists all the wineries I write about and sell. About 300 links. I've been told that google doesn't like so many links on a page, but that it doesn't spider javascrpt. Then I hear that it does. Am I being penalized by all the links? Or does the spider really not see them? I don't want to give up my javascript menus, unless I have to. Should I put a no follow on each link inside the code? And on the other hand, am I losing google juice by not letting it see all the pages on my site that I link to in the javascript menu? Thanks in advance for your help!
On-Page Optimization | | JeanYates0