I have a site that I've kinda inherited from my wife. Actually she just lost interest and doesn't have time to work on it. This site has quite a few pages that has ranked #1 in Google for 2-3 years. Problem:...the internal link structure is a frigging total mess! I need some guidance and have a few questions. I'm trying to get a mental picture of linking structure. This is just my thinking...which is probably totally wrong. 1. The home (index page) is considered a tier 1 page. Right or Wrong? 2. Pages in the Navbar are considered tier 2 pages. Right or Wrong? 3. All other pages are tier 3-4 pages. Right or Wrong? I am doing a total makeover on this site. I have a new template, so I'm putting Lipstick, Powder and Paint on it. A new facial! The site had about 270 pages. I put what I consider to be tier 2 pages on the navbar, since the new navbar and the old navbar are different. I took what I consider tier 3 pages that are relevant to each tier 2 pages and just put links to those pages at the bottom of the tier 2 page. I hope this is making sense Maybe I can explain another way. Tier 2 page = Widgets Tier 3 page = Blue, Green and Red Widgets I've linked to the Blue, Green and Red Widgets at the bottom of my tier 2 = Widgets page. So I've got anywhere from 20-50 links going from each tier 2 page to a tier 3 pages. Right or Wrong Next Question: If I have a tier 2 page that has a PR3, should I put a "nofollow" on the links to tier 3 pages, the way I have things set up now? My reasoning (this will be good ) is...that I will lose the tier 2 page strength weight by having all these tier 3 follow links on that page! I'm thinking that the tier 3 pages should stand on their own and link back to the tier 2 page that they are relevant to. Is this just plain stupid or what? That's enough for now , my heads hurts!
I'm not sure about your first question (it's all a bit confusing?!) but I can answer this one for you. A page can't lose value by linking to another internal page. In fact, it can't lose value by linking to any page except a bad neighborhood (a page or site which google thinks is bad - link farms, blacklisted, etc.) If you have a PR3 tier 2 page you definitely DO NOT want to use nofollow tags to link to your tier 3 pages. That's the whole point of passing value via internal linking. Where you want to use nofollow tags are on external links on that PR3 page, so that all the link juice that page has can be funnelled right into your own pages. I hope it's clear, if not I've written a blog post explaining: nofollow external links and internal link power