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I have a site with this structure:
---Home page
------Site map page for blue widgets
-----------Blue Widgets page 1
-----------Blue Widgets page 2
-----------Blue Widgets page 3 etc.
------Site map page for red widgets
------------Red Widgets page 1
------------Red Widgets page 2
------------Red Widgets page 3 etc.
------Site map page for green widgets etc.
Here is the linking structure:
-The home page links to all site map pages.
-Each site map page links to all associated widget pages (i.e. the Site map for red widgets links to the red widget 1 page, to the red widget 2 page and so on.)
-Every widget page links to every other widget page in the same category (i.e. the red
widgets page 1 links to the red widgets 2 page and all other red widgets pages etc.)
-Every widget page links to the home page.
-No pages within one category links to any page in another category. For instance, no red widgets pages link to any green widgets pages and vice versa. No site map page links to any other site map page or widget page in another category.
I would like to know how can I improve my internal linking structure.
-Question 1: Should I link every widget page to its site map page?
-Question 2: Should I link each site map page to the home page?
-Question 3: Should I link the home page to all pages. There more than 700 of them.
-Question 4: Should I cut down on the number of links on the widget pages? All these pages link to one another, and every category (e.g. red widgets) has between 50 and 120 pages. This means that the number of links on a given page can be as high as 100+.
Note: This structure posed no problem in Google until around last February, when there was a very significant decline in the SERPs.
Thanks for your help.
Richard
This is what I think:
1. Yes, I would.
2. If you like. I do not.
3. No. I would not.
4. Yes, I would.
My thoughts on this are, with a large number of similar pages, you have to help a SE determine which is the most important for ranking purposes. Right now, you are saying all pages about Red Widgets are equally important and your site maps are really your Red Widget pages without content. (IOW Your widgets link to all widget pages and they have some text. Your site maps link to all widget pages and they have no text - which page are you saying, internally, is the most important?)
What you are telling SEs through your internal structure is all Red Widget pages are equally important, but there is no way they can be ranked this way - If they were there would be a section of results that are exclusively your site...
I would suggest Widget Indexes (like your site maps with text) and the site maps (so you have some extra coverage) - You can then link to every Red Widget page from the Red Widget Index and then link every Red Widget page to the previous page, the next page (maybe even five if you have a large number), the site map and back to the index.
This way, rather than having a bunch of equally important pages, you have a page that is defined as your Widget Authority page and you are not confusing SEs as to which one should really be the most important Red Widget page, you are telling them through your links.
Just my thoughts.
Justin
I think I understand what you mean by the widget index but would this widget index be huge if every widget page linked back to it? Are you saying the SE will give more prominence to the widget index and that it will start navigating from there or do you mean that it will confer higher page rank to the widget index?
