I'm just starting out in the optimisation world, so have a long way to go in optimising my site, and in learning all the various tricks, but this forum is helping a lot. I wonder if someone can comment on links within a site. Should my index.htm link to a number of my other pages, and then those pages link to some more pages, and so on, and so on, until all pages on the site are linked, bit like a family tree, and NOT have links back to other pages which appear in other branches of the linking tree. OR Should every page with the site link to as many other pages in the site as possible. Is there are downside to having lots of links from one page of a site, to another page, if almost every page on the site has a direct link to almost every other page on the site?
make everything as few clicks away from every page as possible. this is good both for your users and for search engines. some people might debate that there can be advantages to "chanelling" to certain areas of your site- but as long as you consider everything (relatively) equally important, you should keep things as interlinked as possible and remember to use good anchor text!
Remember though, the more links you have on the page, the less PR will pass to the pages it links to.
The answer is that it depends a great deal on the size and complexity of the individual site. But the one rule that applies to all sites is that every page should link back to the home page and if possible with a text link that uses a prime keyword phrase for anchor text. The other rule is if you have a site map page every page should link directly to that page. Why do you want to do this? Because this will transfer the most PR to your home page and site map, and these are normally the two pages that you would like a visitor to land on. Also by having every page link to the site map you can be sure the bots will find it and then crawl the entire site from there.
I have never thought this through, but my practice is--by using SSI includes--to throw a full site map on the bottom of every page. Well, OK, if the site is huge, as by many thousands of data pages, then I'll use a few summary pages for the data mass (for example, for book titles, 26 alpha pages). But I always feel, from my own experiences as a visitor, that it's nice to be able to see how a site is organized, and get to any significant page direct from any other page. I try to make my site directories visually clear when there are more than a few site pages. (An example might be that at the bottom of the page http://greatsfandf.com/english-language.shtml, starting at the underlined Site Directory:). I haven't looked at that site in a while, and I see right now that I should revise the anchor text of the front-page link to include the site name (which perforce includes my keywords). But aside from that, I at least like the use of colors and insetting to clarify (I hope) the logical relations of the parts and sub-parts and pages of the site. But whether this is good or bad internal linking is unclear to me, though I think it's good form.
Ok, guys, many thanks for the above, I'm starting to understand these things better now. I guess the first thing I'll add to the site will be a sitemap, and then I'll go from there. Thanks for the help. David
Server Side Includes. You upload them to the server, link to them in your files and they'll act as dynamic pages when the file is loaded by a user. Also, try this for Links within a site: http://www.webmasterbrain.com/prog/ V Useful
Misohoni, Thanks for the info on SSI. But, why is PROG relevant for links within a site? I can see that it shows me page rank, but I don't understand what it will give me related to links.
Aaahh, I see - so I can spy on my competitors links, and maybe even persuade some of them to link to me -- sneaky, I like it.
Still on the topic of Links within site, which of the following would be best as a link back to "Home" from each of the individual pages on my website:- 1. <a href="index.htm">Equus Business Finance</a> 2. <a href="http://www.equusbusinessfinance.co.uk">Equus Business Finance</a> 3. <a href="index.htm">Business Finance</a> 4. <a href="http://www.equusbusinessfinance.co.uk">Business Finance</a>
Probably 3# or #4. It makes no difference within a site if the link is relative or not. But on the issue of anchor text unless you are trying to brand Equus then it is probably better to leave it out of the anchor text. I assume from the above that your prime keyword phrase is "Business Finance".
That was a very rapid response - I hadn't even got off the site! Yes, "Business Finance" would be my prime keyword phrase. The reason I asked that question is because I'm sure I read somewhere that the search engines can potential have 4 different URLs for your "home" page, depending on how it was linked to, namely:- www.equusbusinesfinance.co.uk/ www.equusbusinesfinance.co.uk/index.htm equusbusinesfinance.co.uk/ equusbusinesfinance.co.uk/index.htm And, I'm sure that I read that page rank gets spread around them, as separate URLs, if you are not consistent in how you do your linking to your "home" page.
So, internal links I reckon I'll go for 4. <a href="http://www.equusbusinessfinance.co.uk">Business Finance</a> For inbound backlinks, as I am more concerned about get higher for the Keyword Phrase "Business Finance" thank branding "Equus Business Finance", I'll leave "Equus" out of the anchor text, so would it be best to use C below in preference to the other combinations:- A. <a href="http://www.equusbusinessfinance.co.uk">Business Finance</a> B. <a href="http://www.equusbusinessfinance.co.uk/index.htm">Business Finance</a> C. <a href="http://www.equusbusinessfinance.co.uk"/business-finance.htm>Business Finance</a>
I personally don't think it matters. If you are going to do that - add the "title=Business Finance" alt type text also in the tag.
If you use "C." you won't be directing the PR or any other part of the backlink value to your home page. So it depends complete on what page you want to promote in the SERPs.
Although you say I won't be directing PR to my home page, would I have more success in getting a higher ranking by concentrating on a page that includes the Keyword Phrase that I am targetting, rather than just the home page? I am at the very early stage at present, so could go either way at present. You guys have been tremendous help over the last week, which has helped me refine my strategy immensely.