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Site Navigation Structure - can it affect internal linking?
spirit23
Posts: 16
Joined: 29 Nov 06
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16 Feb 07 3:48 pm

Site Navigation Structure - can it affect internal linking?

Hey Guys,

I've noticed that on the websites that Mark has created the navigation bar (for all other articles) is visible on each page of the site itself. This is currently the foundation of my own site...but I was wondering whether doing this hampers the internal linking structure of the site?

Would it make a difference if I only had the navigation menu on the INDEX page of the site, and NOT on each other page (be it article or review pages), instead those pages would link the the next relevant article (within the article/review text) - and maybe have a sitemap or a link to the index page at the footer of those pages?

In that scenario, there would be logically linking from each page to the next, whereas in the former example, ever page is linked to every page...which may not be search engine friendly?

What do you guys do for your pages? Maybe it doesn't make any difference at all....

Thanks again,

Asanka.
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chatyak86
Posts: 1085
Joined: 17 Jun 06
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16 Feb 07 5:51 pm
spirit23 wrote:Hey Guys,

I've noticed that on the websites that Mark has created the navigation bar (for all other articles) is visible on each page of the site itself. This is currently the foundation of my own site...but I was wondering whether doing this hampers the internal linking structure of the site?

Would it make a difference if I only had the navigation menu on the INDEX page of the site, and NOT on each other page (be it article or review pages), instead those pages would link the the next relevant article (within the article/review text) - and maybe have a sitemap or a link to the index page at the footer of those pages?

In that scenario, there would be logically linking from each page to the next, whereas in the former example, ever page is linked to every page...which may not be search engine friendly?

What do you guys do for your pages? Maybe it doesn't make any difference at all....

Thanks again,

Asanka.


I understand your concern b/c of silo's?

If you have a bunch of "navigation links" throughout the site it won't hurt you. Just don't link to every page from every page etc....

Hope this helps :)

Adrian,
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spirit23
Posts: 16
Joined: 29 Nov 06
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16 Feb 07 6:28 pm

 Hey Adrian,

Yeah silos are my concern (i.e. The Plan)

... I understand what you mean.... so then it IS a bad idea to link to every page on each page? Why is that?

Asanka.
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conker
Posts: 7
Joined: 01 Sep 06
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16 Feb 07 7:09 pm

 Hey

This also concerned me but I see it like this. If I am targeting mostly Pay Per Click I will make the site very visitor friendly, having every page accessible from any page. If your trying to rank for a very broad term like say, Spanish, Dog, Insurance, a well siloed site is important.

What do you guys think?
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sean06
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16 Feb 07 11:58 pm

 No, you should be treating these nav bar links as free backlinks. If you use relevant anchor text and link to one of your category pages, then you will be giving that page a valuable link when your homepage becomes high PR.

Make sense?
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chatyak86
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17 Feb 07 12:05 am

 What I am saying Asanka is that having a few links that are your "navigation" for the website will not hurt your rankings. This is fine. What I meant by not linking to every page is this...

Each article you have in your site should just have a link to another relevant article in that folder of your site. Do not link to 15 pages from that one article..... but having the nav bar on every page is OK.

Adrian,
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