Should I have as few internal links as possible?

[AshShep1]

On most pages of my site i have a Quick Links section, which gives x3 cross sales links to other products, a newsletter sign up link, link to Blog, x4 links from images to surveys, newsletters, feedback etc.

Will these links be hurting my optimal SEO juice between pages, should the number of internal links be kept to a minimum?

My site is www.over50choices.co.uk if that helps.

Thanks
Ash

[Oli-Sherry]

This is an interesting question, and one that I looked into fairly recently.

A simplistic answer to your question would be that yes, more internal links will distribute link juice across your site much more evenly, like so: Home page (100%) -> 25 internal links (4% each). As opposed to something like: Home page (100%) -> 4 internal links (25% each).

However, to truly answer this question there is a bit more detail involved.

As with most things in web design, there is a trade-off. For example, take a concept like the mega-menu navigation you are currently using (i.e. a menu with loads of links in a drop down). There is an argument to say that mega-menu's are solid from a usability point of view, most particularly for e-commerce sites. This is because there is a vast amount of products to sift through, and getting to the one you want in as few clicks as possible is quite important.

The trade-off for using a mega-menu, in my opinion, is that it is quite poor in terms of link juice optimisation. This is because the Google algorithmn 'sees' the links from every single drop down as a live internal link - regardless of the hover effect.

In your 'funeral planning' drop down alone, there are 53 internal links that appear on every page. Essentially, every page on your website is linking to every other page, so the link juice is spread evenly. At a guess you have at least 300 internal links on the home page, which would translate to 0.33% of link juice per page.

• Please note this is a massive over simplification, because the algorithmn weights the links differently due to position. See #5 here on the following link (also bear in mind the date of the article!): http://moz.com/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links
• Also, a portion of link juice is 'lost' when passed, to prevent an infinite loop. An estimate is that a page only passes 85% around 85% of its total. Saying 100% means simpler maths to illustrate the point above

Now this is not to say that mega menus are a bad idea, it is just a trade-off in favour of Ux over internal link optimisation. In these situations you need to think what is best for your own specific situation.

Hope that helps

Oli

[TakeshiYoung]

Yes, try to reduce the number of links you have on all your pages while maintaining a good user experience. Contextual navigation is a great way to achieve this. For example, if someone is exploring the "Energy" section of your site, then they probably don't need 50 links about "Funeral Planning".

Try to keep the links in the nav relevant to the section of the site they are on, while providing access to the top level categories if the user wants to visit a different section. This will reduce the number of links on the page, and also improve the keyword relevance of each of the individual categories.

[AshShep1]

Hi Takeshi thanks for your response.

For our site of our size ie c300 pages do you think that the "mega menu" is not necessary and will help improve juice flow throughout the site?

Thanks

Ash

[AshShep1]

Hi Oli thanks for your answer.

With the site only 6 months old and looking for as much help with rankings i wonder whether i should ditch the mega menu in favour of more google juice?

With only c300 pages & 6 core categories, navigation is easily accessible from the top nav.

I agree its a balance!

Thanks

Ash

[TakeshiYoung]

I'm personally not a fan of mega menus (this article explains why), but I think it can be OK on the homepage. It becomes more problematic on the inner pages, however. If someone is in the "Energy" section of your site, they don't need to be able to get to every page of the "Funeral Planning" section. So if you can make the menus more contextual based on what section of the site the user is on, that will provide the best experience for users, preserve link equity, and improve topic relevance.

[Oli-Sherry]

I would agree with Takeshi that in this instance, a mega menu may not be the best option.

Contextual navigation is really what you should be after. That is a bit of a buzzword though, so I'll explain what I mean in more detail. In simple terms, contextual navigation means only showing navigational elements that you can deduce a user is interested in. This works both ways, in that you also shouldn't 'jump the gun' and show them links just in case they may want them..

To use an example from your site - if we hover over 'money'. There are 6 main sections, and all of the sub-pages from each of these sections also have links on the hover menu.

If you would like to move more towards the SEO side of the trade-off, why not remove the sub-page links? This would drastically reduce the number of internal links that appear on every page.

At a quick glance, the nav menu would go from several hundred links, down to 37. I feel there would only be a minimal loss in navigability doing this, because you also have a contextually based side bar menu. Some people believe that mega -menu's are worse for navigability, because it overloads the user with choice. Again I think that labelling something as good or bad (it is all situational), but depending on your situation and point of view it may even improve things!

An even bigger step towards the SEO side of the trade-off would be to remove the drop down menu entirely, and use 'hub pages'. For example, by this I mean that the actual 'Funeral Planning' page would be the primary method of navigating through to the 6 main sections. This would mean that the top nav consisted of only 7 links. Remember though, that depending on your goals, this may be a little too far in the SEO direction because it would make navigation a little more complex (a user would have to click a couple of times before getting to the desired section).

Use your knowledge of the big picture of the business to decide what is best - a slightly better navigation vs more tightly controlled link juice!

Oli

[AshShep1]

That sounds like a good compromise solution to just show the main pages reducing the links substantially whilst maintaining an effective customer experience

Thanks Oli

Ash