How does a Website menu effect SEO?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by steelerguy26, Sep 17, 2010.

  1. #1
    Quick question guys, I have a client, who is a pain in my butt, complaining that he thinks his websites menu is causing Google to be confused about what his pages are about due to keywords as menu links. (Top bar menu) the site is http://rapidpos.com

    I told him Google knows the difference and it has no effect, at least not enough to mess up search but he is wanting me to change his menu where each section of the site has different ones. Of course I told him this was a bad idea and a website menu should have the same standards across the board from page to page but he is nuts so my question is:

    Does menus effect Google ranking, keywords or in anyway confuse Google as to what each page is about?

    Thanks in advance guys.
     
    steelerguy26, Sep 17, 2010 IP
  2. theseomonk

    theseomonk Peon

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    #2
    Although your top menu is not bad from the view of SEO but looks odd and unusual too from the usability view or can say users point of view.
    You have submitted links in only 1 deep link that is good no too much deep linking you had applied.
    But remember one thing aways submitted you links or create your menu in different files and include that in HTML rather then creating or pasting code at each pages of your web sites.
    That may helps you from two ways.
    1 - If you want to change menu you never need to do in all pages,just update in that separate file and save it and get the results same at each pages.
    2 - It may reduce over coding at HTML and this will results to reduce loading time of your web site which helps for batter ranking.
     
    theseomonk, Sep 17, 2010 IP
  3. Peace maker

    Peace maker Peon

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    #3
    Website menu is the anchor text and it repeats on each page. It means, that all pages links to your website main pages using the same anchor text. So use your keywords in the website menu!
     
    Peace maker, Sep 17, 2010 IP
  4. 2dragonsltd

    2dragonsltd Peon

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    #4
    A menu is a link to your next set of pages, so it shouls simply reflect where its going to, a bit like product links, and related links etc.
     
    2dragonsltd, Sep 17, 2010 IP
  5. indochinaads

    indochinaads Peon

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    #5
    Althrough you have menus or not, It don't affect rank of site
     
    indochinaads, Sep 17, 2010 IP
  6. punchaboveyourweight

    punchaboveyourweight Peon

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    #6
    Man! I don't even understand what the hell these guys are saying. Basically think of your menu as links to your site. The anchor text should be similar to what the page is about. With that said it's probably more important that the menus are descriptive to your users. I hate it when people replace "Home" with, in your case, "San Diego POS". Then it's hard for me to navigate within the site. Besides, your site has little pagerank yet, so I would just focus on the users and worry about the anchor text of your backlinks.
     
    punchaboveyourweight, Sep 17, 2010 IP
  7. Domenic Carlson

    Domenic Carlson Peon

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    #7
    Your website menu should use text so that its SEO benefits will apply to the page that it's pointing to.

    Don't listen to your client (what a bad thing to say). Make sure that your menu always stays the same. Otherwise users will get tremendously confused as they hop around. If this is not the first rule of website making then it's in the top 3.
     
    Domenic Carlson, Sep 17, 2010 IP
  8. jvfconsulting

    jvfconsulting Active Member

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    #8
    I see you have a sitemap.xml with all your pages in there, you should be fine. Show your client the link to it, so he knows spiders will find them just fine.
     
    jvfconsulting, Sep 17, 2010 IP