Too Many on page links! Will "NoFollow" for navigation help?
-
I am getting to many on page links ( for all my pages). Here is my website:
http://www.websterpowerproducts.co.uk
I think it is to do with the the navigation bar down the right hand side. I don't really want to get ride of this as it offers users a way of getting where they want without lots of clicking.
I was wondering if adding a "NoFollow" tag to each of they links would stop the link juice getting diluted by the navigation bar.
Many Thanks
-
From Google's perspective: "If those pages are 'non-important' why are you linking to them from the navigation on every page?"
I didn't see any right-hand navigation, but I did see navigation on the left side. I do not see an issue with it, however, as this is an important way to get people and search engine spiders to category and eventually product pages. Perhaps you are thinking too hard about this so I will throw my opinion in along with the three other experienced SEOs above who all I think agree on this:
Do not nofollow your navigation links. Do not get rid of them. Do not worry about losing "link juice" into those pages.
If you truly think a page is unimportant, such as a category that doesn't sell many products, consider removing it from the navigation. Here's an example of how that might be done in this case:
I see the fly-out navigation to sub-categories includes all sub-categories for each main category. You could choose the top five sub-cats and then include a "See more categories" type of link instead of showing them all. This could be useful on a long list of sub-cats like the one under "Power Tool Accessories". You could limit the navigation to just two categories deep instead of including the third fly-out navigation level (e.g. Power Tool Accessories --> Bit Sets --> Socket Sets).
If the argument is that those third level categories are useful to visitors, thus you want to leave them there, then you have answered your question. Leave them. Don't worry about page-rank. If they are important enough for visitors to want them there and to use them, they are important enough to have their small share of pagerank.
If you choose to ignore all of this advice and want them to be there, but not pass pagerank, you can change the way your navigation operates by using a script so there aren't actually any href tags on the page for the navigation. All of the links would be controlled in the script, which would be placed in an external .js file, which could be inside a folder that is blocked in the robots.txt file. I don't recommend it, but that's one way to do it.
-
I would definitely not use no-follow, that just doesn't make any sense as your navigation links are part of your link juice to those pages.
Also, no-follow is meant for links that are outside a webmasters control or for paid links so they are not intended to be used by a webmaster on his own site linking to his own content.
As for too many links in the navigation (at least that is what I assume you meant), that indeed can be a problem for useability. It is always a good idea to see how well-known brands handle this problem, so have a look at for example http://www.ebay.com/ and http://www.amazon.com/
By not showing all links directly in the navigation you can have both a more user friendly website and get rid of the issue you think you have with search engines as then you can better funnel the link juice to the more important pages.
-
Matt Cutts says: Don't no-follow internal links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bVOOB_Q0MZYHe also points out the "issue" of too many links per page is not an issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l6g5hoBYlf0 -
Thank you for your answer.
I am actually trying to stop lnk juice for passing through the navigation bar as I think it is just diluting up the page rank to non-important pages.
-
Unfortunately it won't. Some time ago (like one or two years) Google has announced a change in the way they handle nofollow in combination with link juice. Adding nofollow will only prevent juice from flowing to those pages, but won't distribute it over the other pages like it would when the nofollow'ed links weren't there.
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
-
To NoFollow or to NoIndex internal links
I all, I have recently taken over a fairly large e-commerce site that I am trying to "fix" and have come across something that I need a second opinion on. A Semrush audit has revealed that there are a heck of a lot of internal nofollow links (over 90 000) that point to predominantly 4 pages from the Header of each page in the site, these are change currency pages to show clients different currencies and a members login page. The pages are: /?action=changecurrency¤cy=EUR /?action=changecurrency¤cy=USD /?action=changecurrency¤cy=GBP /members/ My opinion is that these pages should just be no index pages and they should be followed. instead of being indexed and no followed? Any thoughts on this out there?
On-Page Optimization | | cradut0 -
How many keywords for home page?
I am a close up magician based in the UK and have just signed up for Moz Analytics and looking through the info now. The first issue was that it says my home page had an F grade for "table magician" My home page is not really optimised for table magician but Moz is suggesting I do. So my question is do I go with Moz and adjust my home page to match even though I have a dedicated page for table magician. Is this title tag for the home page too much. Roger Lapin: Wedding Magician - Close up Magician - Table Magician ?? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | rnperki
Roger
http://www.rogerlapin.co.uk0 -
Navigational Links in Dropdown Menus
Hi Mozzers will navigational links in dropdown menus carry the same weight for Google, just as navigational links that are always visible to the user do? Thx, Chris
On-Page Optimization | | Diderino0 -
Not sure if I need to be concerned with duplicate content plus too many links
Someone else supports this site in terms of making changes so I want to make sure that I know what I am talking about before I speak to them about changes. We seem to have a lot of duplicate content and duplicate titles. This is an example http://www.commonwealthcontractors.com/tag/big-data-scientists/ of a duplicate. Do I need to get things changed? The other problem that crops up on reports is too many on page links. I am going to get shot of the block of tags but need to keep the news. Is there much else I can do? Many thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Niamh20 -
Too many links on the same page
I have a problem with to many links on the same page, and there all for the classified adds of my web site, what would be the best way to handle this.
On-Page Optimization | | clickit2getwithit0 -
How to improve On-Page Grades for Top Ranking Pages
please help me - i dont know or understand how to improve on-Page Grades for Top Ranking Pages
On-Page Optimization | | pwwukpw0 -
Are there to many internal links here?
This is our main Motorcycle Parts page. In my opinion there are to many links on this page. They have put links to all the top brands after products. Do you think having all these links could be hurting our rankings/ ability for google to crawl the site efficiently? The links are good for navigation, I just think there are way to many there like over 200. Here is the page you can see what i am talking about http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/s/49/61/Motorcycle-Parts
On-Page Optimization | | DoRM0 -
Nofollow in global navigation?
Currently planning our site architecture and little confused over the management of our global navigation To benefit from the maximum link juice to our 50-100 most important pages we are going to incorporate links to these from our homepage as part of the global navigation. Now I understand we want nice, flat architecture; however; on these sub pages we may one day want to place another 100 of so links on these to another category level. The problem I see arising is if we already have a bunch of links as part of our global navigation we are going to dilute the links on any sub category pages. Now Im guessing the solution to is nofollow the global navigation on all pages other than the homepage? or do the bots recognize a global navigation as such and is able to handle this issue already? Thanks for everyones help.
On-Page Optimization | | jg1000