Strange internal links and trying to improve PR ? - Please advise

[PeteC12]

Hi All,

I've been looking at the internal links on my eCommerce site to try and improve PR and get it as efficient as possible so link juice isnt getting wasted etc and I've come across some odd ones I would like some advice on

My website currently has between 125-146 links on every page (Sitemap approx 3500 pages). From what I read ,the ideal number of links is under 100 but can someone confirm is this is still the case ?..Is it a case of less is more , in terms of improving a page PR etc ? in terms of link juice strength etc so it's not getting diluted to unnecessary pages.

1. One of my links is a bad url ( my domain + phone number for reason) which currently goes to a 404 page ?. - Is this okay or do we need to track down the link and remove it. I don't want link juice getting wasted as it's on every page.

2. Another one of my links is my domain.name/# and another one with some characters after the # which both to the home page. Example www.domain.co.uk/#   and www.domain.co.uk#abcde   both go to homepage.  Is this okay or  am I potentially getting duplicate content as If I put these urls in , they go to my home page.

3. I have a link on every page which opens up outlook (email) on the contact us. Should this really be changed to a button with a contact us form opening up instead ?

4. I currently have 9 links on the bottom on every page i.e About it , delivery , hire terms,.contact us , trade accounts , privacy, sitemap.  When I check , these pages seem to be my strongest pages in terms of PR. Is that because they are on every page?.. Should I look to reduce these links as they are accessible from the navigation menu apart from privacy and sitemap.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated ?

thanks

Pete

[RyanPurkey]

Hi Pete. I wouldn't attack this problem solely through PR measurements, rather I'd try to use as much usability data as I could as well; mainly, how are people interacting with your site?  This can be done via Google Analytics, heat mapping and click tracking software like Crazy Egg or Optimizely, or using actual in-person user testing. (These and other tools here: http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/understanding-your-visitors/) What you're trying to come up with is how much do those 150 links really help or hinder people.  It could very well be that less is more.

1. Always try to fix 404s. A tool like Xenu Link Sleuth can help you locate it quickly.

2. The # character is recognized by search engines as an on-page anchor link and is not a concern. See: https://support.google.com/sites/answer/93718.

3. Email links are fine in either style. I wouldn't remove this one from a usability perspective, and you can try using other styles as well (feel free to nofollow it though).

4)  You should keep the footer links as well for usability and trust, check within Analytics to see if you're getting much traffic to these pages. You might be surprised that one of them is doing well for search. Also make sure the design on these pages lends itself well to exploring other parts of your site.

Cheers!

[PeteC12]

Many thanks Ryan,

I will look to do those things.

thanks

Pete