SEO Tycoon

**dave9713** · 01-08-2008, 04:03 PM

I've always worked on the belief that linking your pages together through a navigation bar would help search engines crawl your site. However i am now working with a client who has a extremely awkward site layout.

A lot of the pages aren't directly linked together (some not at all

). I've got a sitemap with a link to it inside the front page of the site. Will this cause search engines problems and decrease rankings? Or should i just get the moaning site owner to change it around.

Thanks to anyone who can help

**Learning Newbie** · 01-08-2008, 05:11 PM

Experience shows that Google will assume most of the pages on that site aren't very important to the site that hosts them. Internal linking is huge.

**loredan** · 01-08-2008, 05:40 PM

I have to agree with this

**seolman** · 01-08-2008, 06:40 PM

Strange to have pages on the site not linked to anything...

A poor compromise would be a site map linked from the home page. At least Google will get a look at the pages.

Always better to have a readable menu to all the major pages...

**ADAM Web Design** · 01-08-2008, 07:20 PM

Let's eliminate search engines from the equation for a minute (we'll come back to it, I promise). The user wants to fiind pages on the site that are 3, 4, 5, 6 levels deep. How would the user get there? Would he/she be likely to do it? What percentage of users would bother to go through to the deep linked pages, especially if the navigation changes (from the sounds of it, that's occurring)?

Your search engine answer is the same as your user answer. As John pointed out, site architecture is extremely important and you can't bury your links that deeply unless your site architecture allows for it.

**vangogh** · 01-08-2008, 08:53 PM

Dave could you post a link to the site? If the client would prefer not it's understandable, though feel free to send a PM with the link.

I'm not really sure how the site is currently linked based on your description. Not every page needs to be linked to every other page, though you should certainly make it easy for people to find the page they're looking for and discover pages that aren't there.

But you can structure a site so that sections only link to other pages within that section for the most part with an occasional link between sections when it makes sense.

It really depends on the size of the site, how many levels deep the pages are and how the information makes sense to be organized.

With the sitemap it's a good idea to have one on your site and it's a good idea to have the home page link to it. That way every page of your site is no further than two clicks away for a search spider. I usually add the sitemap link in the footer on every or most every page.

But I agree with the above that you have to first think of the real people that will visit your site. Make sure they can navigate the site. If you need to you can create additional navigational system specifically for search spiders, but make sure that real people are covered first.

**ForrestCroce** · 01-08-2008, 10:59 PM

I believe this is a navigation style that makes sense to both users and spiders: every page on my site links to every gallery, and my articles section. Each gallery links to all the images in that gallery, but the only page that lists all my photos from the Rockies is my Rocky Mountains Gallery. So not every page links to every other page ... not even close. But there's a simple drill down structure, and hopefully one that gets you close enough - ie to the deepest level menu possible - without making it overwhelming.

I don't have an html site map, but may add one.

**dave9713** · 01-09-2008, 05:34 AM

Thanks for all the replies. The problem is that the company has designed the main section to the site entirely in Java, they have kept the old html site but this links from a landing page.

This bits really hard to explain but i'm going to give it a go! The html side to the site has a nav bar at the side but its not designed in each page its implemented through a file, leftbar.html.

Now this acts as a nav bar but i am clueless to how it works as i'm not to good with coding etc. Basically as you click on the links the page content changes but the URL in the browser and the page title from the main page stays exactly the same. I don't know if i'm wrong to assume this would confuse engines, if i am then correct me.

They have separate pages without the nav bar which you can get to but then you would have to go back on the browser to go to another. These pages have the same content as the other pages but just don't have the nav bar :S.

I have been assuming i would have to block engines from crawling one of the two pages (with nav bar or without nav bar) otherwise its duplicate content. But i'm unsure it would be able to crawl the one with the nav bar at all. Maybe i am wrong and i am just being a worry freak and i should optimize them all but i would be grateful to have your opinions!

Van Gogh thanks for offering help i have sent you a PM with the website address, if anyone else wants to take a look i don't mind sending the link via PM.

**zeruel** · 01-09-2008, 09:03 AM

There must be something wrong with your pages I guess... If it doesn't link to anything, I don't think it would be a good idea...

**vangogh** · 01-09-2008, 09:26 PM

Dave I sent you a PM.

For anyone who hasn't seen the site the basic set up is as follows:

At the top of the domain is a splash page where you can either enter the Flash version of the site or the html version. The Flash version of the site is a single .swf which starts with an intro. The html side of the site is setup using frames (menu on left, content on right). I think the frames are what Dave means by the the weird way the site is linked.

Dave I think based on my description others here will tell you mostly what I said in the PM. I hope you don't mind me describing things like I've done here. If you do let me know and I'll delete this post. I figured it was ok since I'm not mentioning the site specifically.