INTERNAL LINKING

GoldDust · 01-11-2004, 09:17 PM

Hi all,

Basically, how do most webmasters approach internal linking when building there web site, please feel free to elaberate on your theroy's, ideas and of course tips..

John Scott · 01-11-2004, 09:31 PM

http://www.internet-marketing-resear...chitecture.php

compar · 01-11-2004, 10:43 PM

That's a very interesting article John. I've been think about that type of thing myself over the last few days.

Let me be sure I understand. You are not suggesting actually removing any of the onsite navigation are you? I think you are suggesting that links to pages that do not need PR should be done with links -- javascript for instance -- that Google cannot read or follow. Have I got this right?

Let me ask one more question. Would you use a site map on a site where you were trying to maximize your link weight?

John Scott · 01-11-2004, 10:46 PM

Quote:

I think you are suggesting that links to pages that do not need PR should be done with links -- javascript for instance -- that Google cannot read or follow. Have I got this right?

Correct.

Quote:

Let me ask one more question. Would you use a site map on a site where you were trying to maximize your link weight?

I've never really seen the need for sitemaps SEO-wise. I think they are great for users, but just a waste of PR otherwise.

compar · 01-11-2004, 10:55 PM

Quote:

I think they are great for users, but just a waste of PR otherwise.

That what I thought you were going to say. I'm going do as you suggest on one of my sites. I'll let you know as soon as I see any results.

compar · 01-11-2004, 11:02 PM

On an allied question. I had a debate today with another webmaster about whether or not Google will read and heed the alt tag on image links.

I have always felt that text links with good anchor text were clearly the most desirable or best. But I've always thought that Google did read alt tags and used them as a quasi anchor text for image links.

The guy I was talking to stated categorically that Google totally ignored all alt tags.

John Scott · 01-11-2004, 11:16 PM

Quote:

The guy I was talking to stated categorically that Google totally ignored all alt tags.

I believe we tested this, and it's been tested elsewhere, and Google ignores ALT text if it is not a link; but if the ALT text is attached to a graphic which is a link, Google does weight it and in many cases a page will rank for keywords found only in the ALT text of a graphic.

For instance, search for:
http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...ng+Consultants

The word "consultants" is only in ALT text on several of the pages returned from IMR, for instance: http://www.internet-marketing-resear...nktomi-seo.php

Another interesting factoid: Google doesn't read ALT text if it is part of an image map.

I, Brian · 01-12-2004, 01:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldDust

Hi all,

Basically, how do most webmasters approch internal linking when building there web site, please feel free to elaberate on your theroy's, ideas and of course tips..

The following may also be of interest:

http://www.searchengineworld.com/eng...e_pyramids.htm

sem4u · 01-12-2004, 01:22 AM

I always use a site map and build it for both humans and robots. It seems to help most of the pages to get indexed.

GoldDust · 01-12-2004, 08:31 AM

Hi John Scott,

I have read the IMR artical on inbound linking, I have found it to be very informative and has helped me understand the movments within the industry regarding interanl liniking from others perspectives.. :wink:

Also, You mention in your artical ("IMR on internal linking") that the web site monster.com is in the top 5 for (keyword jobs), bearing in mind there is no mention of Jobs in there main page at all so we can see that the point made regarding anchor tags are working in this example -

But if you take a closer look thay seem to be using cloaking - i'm sure this is helping them considerably!! t I do realise there are many different types of cloaking and a diverse set of purposes for usage. The majority of the top 1000 sites (98%?) are cloaking in one form or another, but is this helping monster.com rankings?

have a look plz, and let me know your thoughts.

GoldDust · 01-12-2004, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldDust

The following may also be of interest:

http://www.searchengineworld.com/eng...e_pyramids.htm

Informative, thnx I, Brian

GoldDust · 01-12-2004, 02:59 PM

Ok - Anybody have any good links that show the correct or most effective way of linking internally in a more visual way!

I'm still having some slight prob's understanding whats good and not good practise when linking internally..

Is it ok to have lots of pages just linking to relitive info:

For example if I have a link on my home page about "Cars" then on the "cars" page I have a link to to "car seats" is it ok to leave off links to other pages on the cars seats web page?

I'm concerned my visitors will have to visit the home page to then view other pages??

Thanol · 01-12-2004, 03:34 PM

You can always use javascript in your links so that the spiders won't read the links but pretty much all your visitors can see and use them.

Emancipator · 01-12-2004, 03:47 PM

To clarify the debate myself and Bob had it was my opinion on how much of a factor Alt Tags have on overall performance, and was more of a comment on my part then a debate. Everyone is entitled of course to disagree with me.

Most of my comrades tend to put next to no merit on, onsite factors, but they also generically target high density words where conversion ratios are questionable. Alt tags are part of any strategy but are one that you can also overlook without having STAGGERING side effects.

The Alt tags debate comes back to those in our industry who preach things like "generic optimizing" and "optimizing for all engines" where they often talk about "copy is everthing" and ignore the more important factors such as theme development, proper research, and offsite factors.

It is interesting you also are discussing javascripts for linking. Could not agree more with that line of thought. Nothing worse then wasting PR on pages that you do not intend to. On the site I moderate I often preach of no codebloat, and most importantly using inclusions to keep data off the page the bot doesnt need to get bogged down in.

An interesting group of experiments are being done on Google and what it is or is not indexing, all be it some of them are a bit buggered as some of you will notice. http://www.hotshotsdesigns.co.uk/google_tests/

John Scott · 01-12-2004, 04:01 PM

I kinda hate it when arguments from one forum migrate to another....

Welcome to the forum, Emancipator.

Emancipator · 01-12-2004, 04:05 PM

Thanks john. Bob pointed out this thread, and I have been meaning to come register here to chat and interact. I needed another SEO forum that is not all witch-craft and voodoo to hang out on

There are lots of opinions for and against alt tags, my opinion is its merits are over rated for google since Florida. There are quite a few sites debating the issue, some for, some against, some just talking out of their arse.

One site that is discussing with some good examples for and against is WMW.

Its all in your strategy more then anything, and what your market is.

John Scott · 01-12-2004, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldDust

Also, You mention in your artical ("IMR on internal linking") that the web site monster.com is in the top 5 for (keyword jobs), bearing in mind there is no mention of Jobs in there main page at all so we can see that the point made regarding anchor tags are working in this example -

But if you take a closer look thay seem to be using cloaking

I took a peek at Google's cache of www.monster.com and it appeared to be the same as the page I viewed by going directly to the site. What differences did you notice?

Emancipator · 01-12-2004, 04:07 PM

John. I added you to my MSN be interested in picking your brain sometime on your comments on imagemaps.