SEOMOZ Diagram question

[activitysuper]

Hi,

On this SEOMOZ help page (http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/internal-link) the diagram explaining the optimal link structure (image also attached) has me a little confused.

From the homepage, if the bot crawls down the right-hand link first, will it not just hit a dead end where it cant crawl any further and disappear?

OR... will it hit the end of the structure and then crawl backwards to the homepage again and follow down another link and then just repeat the process until all pages are indexed?

Cheers

pyramid.jpg

[matbennett]

Nice question.

Search engine bots are many headed beasts. When they read a page they will note what links are on that page and add them to their list to crawl. They might then follow several or them (or none at all) and come back later and start with the next URL on their list.

Instead of thinking of the bot like a visitor who is deciding where to go next, think of pouring sand in to the top.  It'll flow down every connected route.

[activitysuper]

Great reply thanks very much, that made sense.

This is the optimal structure SEO wise but from a user experience point of view not the best, what kind of problems would interlinking level 2 cause?

Also if level 3 on the left somehow picked up lots of inbound links are you not locking juice into 1 silo?

I have read a little about this and Rand mentions interlinking where relevant to unlock some of this juice and pass it about a little across silos.

But then do you not just end up with what you was trying not to do in the first place?

Thanks again for the great reply.

[matbennett]

In a vacuum, yes.  However hopefully you'll be linking in and out anyway.  Like most things in SEO it is good to understand the principal without being a slave to it.

If one area is picking up lots of links then fantastic. You could link back around the site to spread that link equity.  Better still - try to ensure it is your money pages that are getting the incoming links!