Internal links to low value pages

[jdeb]

Hi,

We're doing a big content update on our product pages and I'm looking for some advice about our internal linking.

In a nutshell, the current design we're using links out from every product page (i.e. plants) to a set of accessory pages (i.e. things to help you plant the plants). The screenshot shows how this works.

The accessories we sell are a very small part of our business and don't attract significant or valuable search traffic. It's the plant pages that pull in the visits and make the money.
The reason for all these links to accessory pages is for usabilty & to reduce the volume of support calls about accessories (we get a lot of those).

So my concern is that by linking out to these relatively low value accessory pages from all of our plant product pages, we will be spilling link juice from all our important pages to a small set of unimportant ones.

Should I be concerned about this and if so, what should I do differently?

I have considered:

• Making an intermediary page, listing the relevant accessories, so  that each product page links to one intermediary page, which then links to all the accessories.
• Using nofollow on the accessory page links - there is so much info out there about this, much of it conflicting, that I just don't know if that's a good or bad idea.
• Using some kind of java-based pop-up box to list the accessory links that will hide the links from spiders.
• Linking back from the accessory pages to the relevant product sub-category pages to loop the flow of link juice.

All ideas welcome

zoBgC

[JGar-28032]

Hey edeb,

This is one of those cases where you really have to evaluate what is going to work best for your bottom line. Remember that SEO is a means to achieve a goal.

I would start by finding out where you are. Do the plant pages rank well enough? If so, maybe you don't need to do anything, and your site can handle the minor leaks in juice (but hey, keep building links). If not, then yeah I would start looking at solutions to this.

You mention that you placed those products on the main pages to reduce call volume. I know how costly that is so I feel you there. But has it actually helped? And if so, how much? Is it worth the loss in rankings for those main pages?

If you aren't saving the cost you thought you would, or it's not enough to risk the rankings for those pages then I would get em off there (and look for more solutions to reducing that call volume. Man, that's so expensive).

If your major pages are ranking nicely, and the reduction in call volume has been a major relief, son't do anything. Well, call you competitors and brag, but nothing else on this front.

[jdeb]

Thanks Josh,

In the main we rank very well for medium length & long tail searches about our plants, which made me confident about doing all this internal linking in the first place. It wasn't until the die was cast that I lost my nerve.

It's so hard to track rankings across so many products & keyphrase variations, especially when we add in the variables of ongoing link building & the fresh chunks of content that we added to almost all of the updated product pages when we put in these new internal links. We're tracking samples of the most valuable ones in SEOmoz campaigns and nothing dramatic has changed.

We have no accurate means of measuring whether or not these links have affected support calls & email traffic, which isn't much help! We knew this beforehand, but our reasoning was basically "how could it hurt?".

I suppose what I'm really asking for is an example of another site that has dealt with this particular issue, i.e. found a way to use (almost) site-wide links to necessary but commercially unimportant pages without draining the link juice of its important pages.