Links on a page

how much is too much?

[Bewenched]

I've been toying with the idea for using an outline style link structure on some of our specific search pages, but some of the categories are fairly large and I'm afraid doing this may throw some spam filter. How many are too many?

Basically our customer comes to the site and drills down a couple of pages to get to what really pertains to them. Up until now they had to select a main category to get to the subcategories that they really want. To save some server load and possibly eliminate any possibility of "duplicate content" I was thinking of delivering the page like this:

Category 1 Name
subcat
subcat
subcat
subcat
Category 2 Name
subcat
subcat
subcat
subcat

The sub categories would be the link to the information they are looking for instead of them clicking on the category name then clicking the sub category to get to the info.

There is the possiblity of around 220-250 links. Is this too many? Am I setting myself up for more problems?

[le_gber]

220-250 is way too much, not only from an SEO point of view but rather for a usability / user experience point of view. If you were to browse a site that gives you the choice between 200+ links on a single page, how would you react?

[plasma]

bewenched
Google suggests not more than 100/page.

le_gber:
if the links are in pull down menus that might be ok

[Lorel]

I have two sites hit with the indexing problem since April for any page not directly linked from the home page. They have both recuperated within the last month without any structure changes.

Soooooo if Google has fixed this problem then using categories where you list other pages from that page might work. Using a drop down is still listing all the pages from the home page.

[Bewenched]

yes, but bots often spider the option drop down boxes as text and I know msn it looks bad when they do that. It just shows up like a list of spammy keywords instead of actual navigation. It's one reason I've avoided them like the plague.

Also bots dont follow dropdown lists unless (i think) they are css style dropdowns. but even then it looks like a big list of links to a bot.

[edited by: Bewenched at 5:51 pm (utc) on Aug. 21, 2006]

[plasma]

Cleanly coded css drop down menus should be ok with all SEs.
OTOH I don't give a s*** on MSN :)

[decaff]

not only from an SEO point of view but rather for a usability / user experience point of view.

This needs to be prioritized:

1. usability / user experience point of view
2. SEO point of view

For every decision you make on your site...always think usability first...and 200+ links a on page could be confusing and actually reduce your conversions (sales, clicks, ..etc..)

Once you get this right...then SEO will be a snap...

[OptiRex]

There is the possiblity of around 220-250 links. Is this too many?

Google and MSN can handle it with no problem, Yahoo! struggles over 100 links.

It is very easy to do and is also very easy for the visitor to navigate when done correctly.

[appi2]

Just counted links on G. I count 64 total links when the search results are set to 10.
And when its set to 50 100?

choice between 200+ links on a single page, how would you react?

If it was relevant and not spammed to death MFA, I'd fill my pants with joy.

[BigDave]

Go slashdot or just about any news site. Count links. how many come back? I just got 304.

Front page of webmaster world comes back with 199 when I'm logged in.

nytimes is 240.

I use those sites all the time without useability issues.

[Whitey]

I'm not sure on this one. Let's talk SEO first, because there are instances where good navigation may involve a lot of links, potentially 100's.

The Google rule of thumb is no more than 100 links per page and a good balance between links and text. Page weight is also an issue, I believe.

Firstly how many outward links and then how many internal links? We usually have no more than 5 OBL's to a page.

Internal links? .... hmmm that's the tricky one & I don't know. I might open another thread in Google as it's an interesting one, especially when there is a legitimate reason to have many links to the same page [ e.g. one navigation keyword referenced to one / per profile ]

[adamxcl]

I wouldn't make it a practice on every page or part of a site but I have a site where I do have a long long list or linked urls, close to 300. I don't like it being that long but it's alphabetical and it's all real content in a relevant way, fitting in with the way the rest of the site works. The only way to break it down would be by letter or section but that's a extra click for the user and more pages to control.