Internal Linking -- What do you think?

I have a site that I'm redesigning and restructuring, but I'm running into a pagerank dilution/internal linking issue that I want to resolve/optimize.

domain1.com is the site.

pageX.html is a sub-page

subpageX.html is a sub-page of the sub-page (think domain1->pagex->subpagex)

I'm going to provide a couple ideas of what I'm thinking and I'm wondering what your guys' thoughts are on them.

option 1:

domain1
-> pageX
--> subpage1
--> subpage2
-> pageX
--> subpage3
--> subpage4
--> subpage5
--> subpage6
-> pageX
--> subpage7
--> subpage8
-> pageX
--> subpage9
-> pageX
--> subpage10
--> subpage11
--> subpage12
--> subpage13
--> subpage14
--> subpage15



OR


option 2:


domain
-> pageX
--> subpage1
--> subpage2
--> subpage3
--> subpage4
--> subpage5
--> subpage6
--> subpage7
--> subpage8
--> subpage9
--> subpage10
--> subpage11
--> subpage12
--> subpage13
--> subpage14
--> subpage15



Which one do you feel is better as far as pagerank dilution/distribution and optimization are concerned?

Thanks!

 

Hmm, I don't think it really matters how you structure your website. Many large/forum sites have heavy internal linking. You have other things to worry about, like incoming links.

I'd vote 1 though.

 

1. If you have less than 100 pages on your site, I would recommend having a sitemap at the bottom of the homepage. Below each link, include a short description of the page. For example:

Blue widgets
If you are looking for something durable, blue widgets are the choice for you. Blue widgets have been show to have a 30% longer life than yellow widgets.

This gives you good link text "blue widgets" along with other possible keywords "durable", "longer life" and "yellow widgets" in the text.

This basically puts all your relevant keywords on your homepage, which I have found to be very helpful in driving traffic.

2. I would include one link to each page with a relevant keyword in the text. For example, on the general widgets page:

If you are looking for something durable, blue widgets are the choice for you. Blue widgets have been show to have a 30% longer life than yellow widgets. If you are looking for beauty and style, you can't surpass the elegance of green widgets.

3. I would try to occasionally include alternate keywords for your link text. For example:

Most people believe green are the most beautiful widgets. Others are more practical and are looking for the most durable widgets.

That will help those pages rank for the alternate keys "beautiful widgets" and "durable widgets".

Following the above internal linking strategy has helped me rank very well for my targeted keywords.

 

Hmmm thanks Romantic.

I will have 200+ links as subpageX. With that in context, will option 1 be the best then?

Thanks

 

fsmedia,

I think my answer would be more helpful if I understood more about your site. In rough numbers, can you share the following:

Using this example:
Homepage
>Main Page1
>>Subpage1a
>>Subpage1b
>Main Page2
>>subpage2a
>>subpage2b
...

How many "Main Pages" do you have?
Are all the Main Pages of equal importance?
What is the number range of subpages for each Main Page?
How many "subpages" do you have?
Are all the subpages of equal importance?
Do you want to put more emphasis on some Main Pages and their subpages over others?

 

The whole concept of "internal" linking is not a specific method, what it refers to is proper linking of all your web pages. In a sense, all your web pages should be accessible via the top level web page (ex. yourdomain.com) one way or another. The trick is to have multiple internal linking points to all your pages, creating an effective web loop as I like to put it. Each web page should some how be linked to atleast more than 2 other pages on your site, the more the better as it helps pages get indexed faster and also helps distribute internal Pagerank better.

 

IMO option 1 is better, i vote for it.......

 

Ok, for example, it's a site similar to http://www.azlyrics.com/

A-Z alpha for lyrics artists.

would it be better to keep that A-Z site structure with 26+1 pages for each individual artist links or would it be better to have a single page with X hundred or X thousand artist links?

thanks

 

Here is an example of what I would do, hopefully it makes sense.

1. www.azlyrics.com/
2. www.azlyrics.com/A/
3. www.azlyrics.com/A/Adam-Builder/
4. www.azlyrics.com/A/Adam-Builder/The-Dark-Album.php

1. Branches to all Pages
2. Branches to all Letter Pages + A Entries
3. Branches to all A Pages + Adam Builder Entries
4. Branches to all Adam Builder Pages + links backout to 1, 2 & 3.

 

The thing is you're not really talking about internal linking you're really talking about site structures.

If you can, then definitely silo your site as best you can.

I.e.- My site is about Cats, I have a page about Cat Health, and then 5 pages underneath the cat health page about Cat Food and Diet, Cat Exercise..... Every page is related to Cat Health. Only link within those sub pages and the main Cat Health page. If you have to link out to lets say a page on Cat Toys, you should make it a javascript link so that it isn't followed by the search engines, and doesn't dilute your link strength.

Make sense?

Internal linking structures have little to do with the actual site structure of your website, because you can artificially change the internal linking strategy while maintaining the same site structure. For instance, you can use either your option 1 or option 2 setup depending on whether you use standard links or javascript links. In that way pushing ranking and theming where you want it.

HTH

 

From a SEO and PageRank molding perspective, this is what I would do:

Homepage links:
A-Z
Top 50 artist pages in terms of traffic
Top 25 artist pages in terms of potential traffic (Up and coming stars, top American Idol contestants, etc)

Main Page A links:
Top 2/3 of A-Z traffic pages (M, L, S, T, A, ...)
Bottom 1/3 of A-Z traffic pages with nofollow (Q, X, Z, ...)
Top 5 or 10 artists overall
A... artists

Subpage A1 links:
Top 1/3 of A-Z traffic pages
Bottom 2/3 of A-Z traffic pages with nofollow links
Top 5 or 10 artists
Top A... artists overall
Other A... artists with nofollow links

What this will do is concentrate your PageRank on your top performing Main Pages and artist subpages and minimize the PageRank on your poorer performing pages.

I understand implementing this might be a problem. If that is the case, follow all the links I noted as nofollow. But you should understand that distributes you PageRank evenly between the main pages (even Q) and most of your artist pages. Only the top 10 will have extra PageRank from all the pages and the 75 artists will have extra PageRank from the homepage.

I hope that is helpful.

 

good explanation, thanks for your opinion