I have a very basic question, that arises out of confusion, more than anything. Regarding internal links - Does the "need" for internal links go beyond the navigation scheme of the site? If so, what are some recommendations for improving the internal linking? Is there such a thing as "internal link spamming?" cad-design-engineering dot com Can someone please give me some quick critique of this site? (excluding comment on the currently broken news page) I'm at over 7 months on this site, ranking at the top of MSN and yahoo, but nowhere to be found in Google. Thank you.
If I were you, I would give each page a unique title. I looked at google's cache of some of your pages. Did you recently change all of your page titles to be the same? For example, you might want to name this page: http://www.cad-design-engineering.com/KnowledgeBase/ "KnowledgeBase" As I am typing this...it appears you are working on the site.... Get a links page...and trade some links... you can find people on this site for your link exchange submit to all the free directories...check the directory section of this site for some good lists... set up a signature here with a link to your site... Add more content to the pages themselves also...they seem a little barren go through posts on this website for like 1/2 hr a day and you will know all you need to in short order... good luck
???? No - my pages NEVER had the title the same, that I know of. I just looked at them, and the title is exactly as I always remember it. The title in the knowledgebase uses a variable, as this was created using a highly modified version of a blogging script. It uses the category name, and includes the domain name. So, if I go to the FAQ section, that's a different "category" in the blog script, and it inputs it as a variable. (yes, the title is a variable - this is a CMS, and I've asked it to be automated. Is the inbound link more valuable, or is it necessary to do inbound only AND reciprocal? Because I have already started a directory, and I want to exclude anything irrelevant (or unfriendly competitors) from being listed. Links are coming along nicely. I've put in for over 400, and have about 120 already approved. Still waiting for my big break in the ODP. (like everyone else)
solid---I have been staring at a computer all daaaaaayy. I guess my eyes are playing tricks on me(?) all links to your pages are great. some are better than others...unless you are going to be paying for links....you might find that directory listings etc, might not be enough to rank for your terms... this is just me...but i wouldnt worry about your competitors...worry about yourself...i doubt any potential customers are going to care whats in your directory or even look at it...you give them a link, you get a link... sounds like you are plugging away quite well... look into the co-op here also...
Regarding your questions about internal links. IMO, yes you can spam via internal links. Like so many other things, too much of a good thing can be too much. Internal links can/do assist regarding your rankings which is why it can be important to make your internal links readable via the search engines (vs. all graphic links) and focused on specific keyword phrase (similar to inbound links).
Thanks for the advice. I'm currently contemplating whether to do the co-op, or join up with link vault. I really don't have a clue, in either case. Anyway, what about the internal links? I'm not so worried about trying to copy any other "similar" websites - could care less - I have my objectives clearly in sight. The only problem is, my objectives don't cout for two farts in the hand, if I don't have customers. I've heard a lot about internal links, and some people have told me that I need more. So, how should I go about getting more? I'm not sure that after all of my "SEO" efforts, that I really understand the ins and outs of internal links. Is this just a ploy to get the spiders to go all over my site, front and back, and then back to front? More internals = more spidering activity? (I'm currently getting spidered between 500 and 700 times per month, with no Google sitemaps)
This is kind of a catch-22 for me. Although one must be careful to avoid "spamming," it almost seems to me that at the very moment that one asks how to avoid "spamming," they're actually asking how to *effectively* do it. By the same logic, most "SEO" is technically a sort of spamming - after all, we're all attempting to dope the SE's into "liking" our pages. Nothing really natural about any of this... Passion alone doesn't seem to get anyone anywhere - unless you are (eh hem) an SEO'er. No offense intended to anyone, of course - I fully understand the place for SEO, and deem it a valid and noble profession, despite the controversy. But to be more specific, how do I spam/not spam the SE's with internal links? What constitutes too little, and when has a person gone overboard with internal links? How *should* I be using them? (other than navigation, if at all) I'm a little frustrated, and I'm beginning to wax philosphical. Please excuse my lunacy. Thank you.
Maybe I'm a little dense tonight, but the only way I can see to spam with internal links is to have multiple links on every page to every other page. And this really isn't going to work because there is some pretty good evidence that Google will only count the first link to a page that is found on the page. In other words if I want to direct 10 links from every internal page to my home page it probably won't do me any good at all. Google will read the first one and ignore the rest. Of course the other thing that should be done for the internal navigation of any site that is at all complicated is to add a site map page.
Internal links can help in many ways...getting spiders to all your info is one, and utilizing anchor text for keyword weight is another, but of course if done right it makes things easier for your visitors. My theory is that all navigation should be easy to read by viewers. So even if I'm optimizing a menu (or any other part of the site) I still want viewers to immediately grasp what's going on. So what I do is start by looking at my primary keywords and break down topics into categories based on that. If those are words I think most people will use then that's how I create my main nav menu. Then I narrow down a list of secondary keyword topics, and if possible include a smaller second nav menu. Check out this Pizza Equipment site I'm working on to see what I mean. There is a horizontal menu, and a vertical list menu on every page. I also look at... a. Adding a sitemap with direct links to ALL pages b. Hyperlinked images with small keyword phrases for alt text c. Direct links from within page content It's also a good thing to keep in mind that the higher up on a directory structure the easier it is to get something indexed. If you're having problems getting pages spidered then your nav menus might need work, or it might help to add a sitemap...or even restructure your file/folder setup. As Compar mentioned the general theory is that Googlet ignores multiple links on one page which point to the same file, but I've also read that while it doesn't pass Pagerank it can still help with keyword weight. I sometimes do include multiple links utilizing different keywords, and while I can't conclusively say that this boosts rankings I do know that it doesn't hurt (and maybe even helps)...as all the sites I've worked on enjoy high serps.
Well if that is correct then that is perfect. PR is useless anyway. What you want out of a link is relevance or keyword weight. Why anyone is still worrying about, and chasing, PR is beyond me.
I agree...it's crazy how much I still see that playing a part of ad buys or domain buys. Understanding good nav structure is incredibly important tho, not just for optimization but also in terms of functional design. There's nothing worse than losing your site visitors cause they're frustrated....it's pretty much zip chance they'll come back!