Chapter 6 - Linking Your Pages Correctly

Posted by admin

January 5, 2008

Before we continue with this chapter, it is time to introduce the concept of Google PageRank (PR). PageRank will be discussed in more detail in “Chapter 9 - All About PageRank”, but is discussed here in order to understand why it matters how you link pages on your website together.
PageRank is a numeric value that Google places on how important a page is on the Web. PageRank is determined by how many incoming links there are that point to a page. Incoming links are links that point to a page from another page. Such links may be located on pages on the same website (internal links) or on pages on different websites (external links). External links are valued more than internal links although the exact amount is not publicly known.
Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is in effect “casting a vote” for the other page. The more incoming links (votes) there are for a page, the more important the page is to Google, generally speaking.

Note: Google PageRank is but a single factor used in the ranking algorithm. Many obsess over the importance of PageRank to the near exclusion of everything else. As such. PageRank and its importance is truly over-hyped.
Proper linking between pages of your website, if done right, will help retain the total PageRank of your site and will also distribute or channel your site’s overall PageRank value to your most important pages. Your site’s total “PR” value is simply the sum of the PR values of all the individual web pages. But remember that PR is usually referred to on a per-page basis.
Internal links serve to share or distribute PageRank among all pages of your site. Links on your site that point to other websites can decrease PR from those pages that contain outbound links (and hence your site’s total PR), while links from other sites can increase your site’s total PageRank.
In general, the more internal links there are between pages of your site, the more evenly distributed the PageRank becomes in your site. Let’s see why this is important.

Structuring Your Internal Links
There are two main types of internal linking methods - hierarchical and mesh.

Hierarchical linking
Hierarchical linking is used where one or more pages on your site (such as the home page) are considered more important than other pages. Important pages are linked to from all other pages in the site, but not all pages cross-link between each other. This concentrates PageRank on your most important pages.
Most sites should use a hierarchical linking structure, whereby the home page and the most important product, service, or content pages are linked to more often than other pages are. In this way, you can increase the chance that your most important page is ranked the highest on Google for your most important keyword phrase. The following figure illustrates this concept.

The home page typically has the highest PR value as this is the page most often linked to, both externally and internally. This may not be ideal if your home page is nothing but a splash page or contains little content. In this case, you should redesign your home page to include more content and make it more relevant to Google (and to your visitors). If this is not possible, you should re-link internally to your most important keyword-relevant content page(s).

Note that in the preceding figure that the About Us page is only linked to from a single page. This is because the About Us page is not nearly as important (as far as relevant content related to theme, topic and keywords) as the other pages. So why funnel precious PR value to it-instead flow PR value out of the page back to the home page.

Mesh linking
Mesh linking is used when all pages are considered equally important (to theme, topic, and keywords). This is the simplest linking method in that each page on the site links to every other page on the site. Most sites use mesh linking by default without thinking about it by virtue of having the same menu or navigation bar on each page that contains the same links. This evenly distributes PageRank among all pages in the site, which is generally not ideal. The following figure illustrates this concept.

In this example, note that each page links to the lesser important About Us page. So why funnel precious PR value to it? Use hierarchical linking whenever possible!

Best Practices for Internal Linking
The following are best practices that should be used to properly link pages of your site together:
1. Use text-based links if possible and use the proper link structure.
This was covered previously in the Proper Link Formatting topic.
2. Use keywords in your link text for every link.
An important part of Google’s ranking algorithm includes checking the text of a link against text on the linked-to page. Which means use your keywords in link text!
Try not to use “Click here” or “Home” as the text of a link, otherwise Google may decide that page is about “clicks” or “homes”!
3. Link from your home (or sitemap) page to every other page on your site.
If your Web site is relatively small (less than 10 pages or so), your home page can effectively function as your sitemap page. If you have a larger site, this becomes unwieldy and you then really need a separate sitemap page. Make sure you add some content to your sitemap page. It should not consist of just links.
A sitemap page functions as an “index” to your site and is invaluable for the following reasons:
•     Helps Google find and crawl other pages on your site quickly
•     Helps your customers find what they need quickly
•    Helps distribute your site’s PageRank to other important pages
Tip:   Because your home page likely has the highest PageRank in your site, you should try NOT to put any outgoing links on this page. Ideally, the only page you should have outgoing links on is your Related Links page. This will minimize the small amount of PageRank “leakage” from that page. This concept will be discussed later on.
4. Link from every “non-relevant4 page back to your home page ONLY
Non-relevant pages are defined here as those pages that are not keyword-rich and do not likely contain the information that a visitor to your site is looking for while searching on Google. You do not want these pages to receive as much PageRank as your more important pages. Examples of non-relevant pages that should ONLY link back to the Home page include the following:

•    “Copyright” page
•    “Privacy Policy” Page
•    “Disclaimers” Page
•    “About Us” page
•    “Contact Us” page
•    Order form, shopping cart pages
•    “Link to Us” page
•    “Testimonials” page
This helps return and concentrate PageRank back to your Home page, which should be one of the most important pages on your site. Remember, you want to maximize PageRank for your most important pages.
5. Link from your “Related Links” page to every other page on your site.
Because this page contains outgoing links that point to other websites, this page will “leak” PageRank from itself (but not from any other pages). Since PageRank “voting power” is shared evenly among all links on a page, by having as many links point back to your own pages as possible, you minimize this effect. This is a somewhat confusing concept that will be discussed later.
As a rule of thumb, try to keep all links going to other sites on a single page - your “Related Links” page. (If you have more than 100 links on a page, you should split them up into multiple pages. Google may frown on pages that contain hundreds of links and may consider this a link farm.) For more information, see “Maintaining a “Related Links” Page.”
6. Link ONLY between pages that are related by keyword.
This helps distribute PageRank among pages that are related by keyword phrase. The reason you should do this is that these pages are likely as important (or even more) to your customers, which means you should concentrate PageRank on these.
Generally, visitors find your site from the home page and then navigate to your other pages. Internal pages can rank higher than the home page for a keyword phrase, particularly if the home page contains little relevant content.
These pages should also contain a link back to the Home page.
7. Ensure every page links to at least one other page.
This will help Google crawl your site faster and help your customers navigate through your site better. Pages with a link to them but without a link on them are called orphan pages.