The Other Search Engines

**usedcarforsale** · 09-22-2010, 07:24 AM

Imagine you go slap happy with the internal linking on your site. You try to make sure you effectively link all important keywords on your pages to the appropriate internal pages but you go overboard. Can it hurt you?

We asked this question less than a month ago, after reading a WebmasterWorld thread. And most SEOs believe you can indeed hurt your SEO efforts by over linking to internal pages.

Of the 182 responses, 60% said Yes, you can hurt yourself by over linking internal links. 37% said no you can't.

The other responses mostly say, "it depends."

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

**ThailandForum** · 09-22-2010, 07:35 AM

You might want to look at wiki and see how linking should be done.......

**blue-dreamer** · 09-22-2010, 09:42 AM

Simply stuffing pages with "keyword links" is a bit like spamming yourself, but the only people you p**s off are your visitors

**ThailandForum** · 09-22-2010, 11:21 AM

^So your saying wiki isn't popular? If you are linking to relevant content then you can never have too many links.

**blue-dreamer** · 09-22-2010, 12:25 PM

i'd argue that a wiki doesn't always link every key word all the time, unlike some "over SEO'd" sites that link every instance

**ThailandForum** · 09-22-2010, 12:52 PM

Ok, we agree that you only need to link once to each page from each page, but basically every noun is a keyword to someone, at some stage sites like wiki will have a real high percentage of the nouns linking to other pages that relate to the word, do you think google will penalise them for this?

**merockysingh** · 09-24-2010, 03:27 AM

If you are doing backlink from many year then it is not problem but if you have started recently then Google many consider it as a spam..

**blue-dreamer** · 09-24-2010, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThailandForum

Ok, we agree that you only need to link once to each page from each page, but basically every noun is a keyword to someone, at some stage sites like wiki will have a real high percentage of the nouns linking to other pages that relate to the word, do you think google will penalise them for this?

Google probably won't get upset, but aren't wikis and "normal" site pages two different things in terms of the expectations of their users?

If I'm on a wiki I expect a lot of cross referencing, that's the nature of a wiki. On the other hand if you were reading a BBC news article what would be your impression if every other word was a link?

**brown.daniel66** · 09-24-2010, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThailandForum

^So your saying wiki isn't popular? If you are linking to relevant content then you can never have too many links.

Agreed. If you are creating relevant links then you will never have too many links and it will always look natural and everyone who is doing SEO knows that search engines love natural links and penalize link farms.

**ThailandForum** · 09-24-2010, 10:58 AM

Quote:

On the other hand if you were reading a BBC news article what would be your impression if every other word was a link?

To the reader it makes no difference, they will only click on words that interest them, nobody is forcing them to click, to search engines they will love it, nice juicy links to relevant content. NOTE the word relevant.

**ThailandForum** · 09-24-2010, 11:01 AM

There's probably 100 links on this page, the only one I shall click after clicking post quick reply is the new posts button, people choose what they click on, google doesn't care that there is a 100 links on this page, most it will index and maybe de - index or maybe cache them.

**blue-dreamer** · 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThailandForum

To the reader it makes no difference, they will only click on words that interest them, nobody is forcing them to click, to search engines they will love it, nice juicy links to relevant content. NOTE the word relevant.

We'll probably have to disagree on this one

From my point of view inline links are fine but you don't need to repeat any one phrase/word/reference more than once inside an article. I'd suggest that if there are numerous reference points within an article it would be better to append related links at the bottom of the article.

**ThailandForum** · 09-24-2010, 05:21 PM

Quote:

but you don't need to repeat any one phrase/word/reference more than once inside an article.

ok that we have agreed on, at the moment I am working on a series of pages, the smallest shortest page has around 50 inlinks, the more comprehensive pages have a couple of hundred, but all pointing to relevant good content, I'm not going to get penalised for that, and as I get more relevant content I will be adding more links on those pages, believe me, google likes that

**Social-Media** · 10-03-2010, 07:26 PM

Of course you can hurt rankings with internal overlinking. But not because of any type of penalty.

Search engines use internal linking structures and the PR of your pages to determine which pages are most important, which pages should be indexed first, which pages are related to one another. By having massive numbers of internal links, the pages in the navigation will appear less important. It will be less obvious to the engines which pages are more important than others.

For example, a well architected PR7 Theme Pyramid-based site "should" have 1st level pages that are PR6, 2nd level pages that are PR4-5, 3rd level pages that are PR3-4... etc. assuming you have a well architected site with good internal linking structures. It's very clear to the engines what the hierarchy of the site is like... what the internal themes of the site are... what pages are more important.

The 1st level pages target the head terms (hardest to rank for phrases) in its theme... and the deeper you drill into the theme the more long-tail the targeted phrases get (and the easier the phrases are to rank for).

Then add tons of contextual links on every page on the site including the home page... You could end with something that looks more like a wiki... a site with no hierarchy... no clear themes... more of a "mesh". You'll likely end up with something like a PR7 home page with 1st level pages that are PR5... 2nd level pages that are PR2-3... etc.

Doing so will make hit much harder for engines to determine which pages are most important and should be indexed first. You'll end up with a different subset of your pages in the index.

**ThailandForum** · 10-03-2010, 08:01 PM

Quote:

You could end with something that looks more like a wiki... a site with no hierarchy... no clear themes... more of a "mesh".

and get millions of unique visitors everyday, well that would be terrible, as for search engines, you can only guide them in what you consider to be your main landing pages, quite often due to inlinks etc you will find internal pages with as much pr and traffic as the portal, your only option then is to make those internal pages even better rather than trying to direct traffic to click on what you consider your most important page is, you may consider it important, but google doesn't give a toss and your visitors will land where ever they land.

**suichiro** · 10-04-2010, 01:06 PM

Some search engines have a problem with some sites containing 100 or more URLs. If you can lessen your internal links better do it, rather than take the risk.