First link importance in the content

[baptisteplace]

Hi, have you guys an opinion on this point, mentioned by Matt Cutts in 2010 :

Matt made a point to mention that users are more likely to click on the first link in an article as opposed to a link at the bottom of the article. He said put your most important links at the top of the article. I believe it was Matt hinting to SEOs about this.

http://searchengineland.com/key-takeaways-from-googles-matt-cutts-talk-at-pubcon-55457

I've asked this in private and Michael Cottam told me he read a study a year ago that indicated that the link juice passed to other pages diminished the further down the page you go. But he can't find it anymore !

Do you remember this study and have the link ?

What is your opinion on Matt's point ?

[schmeetz]

It makes sense to i would have to agree. When i comes to SEO logical is the way to go.

[SimonCullum]

Hi Baptiste

A good question.

Check out an awesome blog post from Rand from back in May 2010, entitled "All Links are Not Created Equal: 10 Illustrations on Search Engines' Valuation of Links" you'll see that Topic Number 1 provides some great information specific to your question.

I believe that on the whole (as in more times than not, but not always) visitors are more likely to click on the first link as opposed to the second, third...

As the most important content is often towards the beginning of a page's content, generally speaking, it's logical that the first link would be deemed more important than the second, third...  Therefore the first link would pass on more of any available link juice.

Of course, relevance and context also play a part, there is no absolute answer one way or the other.

On a closely related topic of "multiple links", check out these two blog posts here on SEOmoz:

• Results of Google Experimentation - Only the First Anchor Text Counts
• 3 Ways to Avoid the First Link Counts Rule

In summary, "Google does not appear to count multiple links to the same target page from a single page", which I believe is still true today.

I hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

[AWCthreads]

It also supports Google's "above the fold" algorithm update. Get your relevent content above the fold (links too). Think of the fold as the area of your monitor that you can see without scrolling down the page. That's why the top of page 1 pays the money and value diminishes as you go down the page.

Google ran a series of tests last year where AdWords in the right space on the page alternated with space at the bottom of the page. We structured AdWords to be at the top of the page on the right and were pissed off when they moved our ads to the bottom of the page. We wanted our ads to be seen without people having to scroll down the page.

Granted there's a lot of different monitors and Webmaster Central has tools for testing how pages look, but consider your own browsing habits.

People tend to take the path of least resistance (and viewer patience is growing shorter and shorter as the months go by).

[baptisteplace]

Thanks for your answers, I think the first has more importance for Google, as it is for the user. Too bad the study can't be found anymore !