Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Currently the site is about 700 pages plus 1200 shopping cart created asp product pages. The site is designed in Frontpage using shared borders and text link navigation for the html pages. The existing navigation has the children pages in the left hand column with a previous page link at the top of the list. Each bottom level child page (which is most of the pages) just has the previous page text link in the navigation.
I am considering moving to a CSS design, still using text links, with all of the links in a category on every page in that category.
For example I have a category with 30 pages in it. In the current design I have one introduction page with 30 text links one to each page in the category. Each of those pages just has the one link back to the category introduction page.
Under the new navigation plan each of those pages would have 30 text links one to each page in the category.
Will this have an effect on the SE rankings?
In your opinion for better or worse?
Would implementing the changes all at once have a negative effect – a kind of sandboxing effect?
The site has been online for over 4 years evolving slowly. This would be the first major change since the addition of the dynamic shopping cart about 2 years ago.
I took a hit in the October/Nov 2005 shake up and was recently caught up in the Supplemental Hell during Big Daddy, and have just come out of it durring the last couple of weeks so I am a bit leery of changes at this point although this as been in the planning prelim design for quite awhile.
Looking for your opinion as to what are the SE considerations in a site redesign.
For example I have a category with 30 pages in it. In the current design I have one introduction page with 30 text links one to each page in the category. Each of those pages just has the one link back to the category introduction page.Under the new navigation plan each of those pages would have 30 text links one to each page in the category.
If the site is ranking well for those category pages, there would be absolutely no reason to change the linking scheme, unless its for a purely 'visitor-based' reason.
If the site is not ranking well on the those inner pages, do the changes slowly. Unless there is a real reason to interlink like that in a navmenu I don't do it.
If URLs stay the same and most of the text you should be just fine.
I agree and this has been my experience. I asked this same question a few months ago when I was considering revamping my site. It was already performing well but I need to freshen things up and move to CSS. This was an information site with about 100 pages and I can tell you that the net effects have all been positive.
with all of the links in a category on every page in that category
I have a 120+ page site on which the navigation is in a sidebar. Without altering page URLs I'm frequently adjusting the sidebar link structure and have recently adopted what you are describing above. All seems well.
Just one suggestion, though, is not to have pages linking to themselves. This means that the menu is actually slightly different on each page of a category.
Just one suggestion, though, is not to have pages linking to themselves. This means that the menu is actually slightly different on each page of a category.
Good Point, but with 700+ pages I was hoping to use include files for the menus. There would still be about 12 files to edit. Would the leaving the link to the page create a circular reference that might create a spider trap?
Most of the older pages category and detail pages are ranking fine. The reason we are thinking about doing it is that a vistor has to click from a detail page back to the category page to go to another detail page. (and the category pages take a while to load)
Maybe use rel="noindex,nofollow" on the other detail links from every page.
Would the leaving the link to the page create a circular reference that might create a spider trap?
Not a spider trap but just good practice, and it means you don't have blocks of identical code (the menus) on many pages.
The other reason I would advocate a page never linking to itself is that by presenting the page's own button differently when the user is actually on that page, it helps the user. Plus, a page linking to itself doesn't make much sense.
It is more work though.
1. Similar Link Structure.
2. Similar Content as per the existing website or try and add more keyword rich content.
3. Updated Meta Tags on the new website
4. Proper Internal Linking through the website.
And i am sure that you would never loose any rankings if you follow these instructions.
1. Similar Link Structure.
2. Similar Content as per the existing website or try and add more keyword rich content.
3. Updated Meta Tags on the new website
4. Proper Internal Linking through the website.
And i am sure that you would never loose any rankings if you follow these instructions.
As well as usability for visitors you have to ask yourself what Google and others will regard as natural and less spam-like (signs of quality). I suppose on a very large site this can get complex but on smaller ones of a few hundred pages it's not so difficult to play around and see what does best in terms of crawl statistics, page rankings, and visitor behaviour.
