No two links should point to the same page.

Adam Lasnik

[appi2]

Been reading a blog from someone at pubcon.

from Adam Lasnik
Navigation. ... No two links should point to the same page.

Why not? Anyone expand on this?

[helpnow]

Duplicate content... There is tons of information in this forum on the topic.

Yes, "duplicate content" will kill you. If you have any, get rid of it NOW!

One link for every page! Plus, make sure you don't have other variations on "duplicate content" such as indexed versions of both mysite.com and www.mysite.com.

There is much to read on this forum on the HUGE topic of duplicate content!

[digitalghost]

Not sure, but no two links on a page should point to the same page, especially if different anchor text is used. I can't see why any dupe content issues would arise unless you have the same content on different pages.

[johnlim9988]

"no two links on a page should point to the same page"

Is above true? why?

[digitalghost]

If you're using the same anchor text, it is repetitive. If you're using different anchor text it is confusing to both user and algo.

[helpnow]

I suspect he was referring to the existene of two URLs pointing to the same page, but used the word "links" instead of "URLs".

Of course, two links on a page to the same page elsewhere is not a problem. Don't worry, I do it all the time on one of our huge sites, and we have no penalties for it.

[digitalghost]

Two URLs from the same TLD? (with different anchor text) Or two URLs? ;)

[jonrichd]

I believe he was talking about two different URLs leading to the same actual content. For example:

page.php?id=4&cat=5 compared to page.php?cat=5&id=4 look like different URLS, but will ultimately lead to the same page content.

Someone else brought up a similar example:

/products/lamps/gardenlamps.html and /products/garden/gardenlamps.html both lead to pages describing the same garden lamp, but have different URLs because they are in different categories.

I believe there have been a number of posts listing how CMS systems, forum software, and blog software can accidentally use different URLs to point to the same page.

[Beachboy]

Hmmmm interesting. I can tell you for a fact that there are some instances with many of my sites where one page will have two links pointing to some other page. Typically the anchor text between the two links differs somewhat. So far, no problems at all with penalties. The pages have been like that for a couple months in a couple cases, to a few years in some other cases. It seems to me that Google ought to recognize that people do these kinds of things naturally and that therefore such linking behavior ought to be accepted.

[edited by: Beachboy at 5:56 am (utc) on Nov. 17, 2006]

[wanderingmind]

Two links pointing to the same page - Adam probably wrote that in a hurry.

[digitalghost]

>>page.php?id=4&cat=5 compared to page.php?cat=5&id=4 look like different URLS, but will ultimately lead to the same page content

Now we're getting somewhere. That is why God created 301s and robots.txt exclusion. ;)

[jomaxx]

Two different URLs pointing to the same content, that makes sense. That would be a poor design practice and it's something I consciously try to avoid.

I thought my brain was going to explode when I read you can't have 2 links on a page to the same page. That would be total and utter nonsense.

[AndyA]

Has to mean (as mentioned above by several people) that you shouldn't have links on your site pointing to the same page that have different URLs, i.e., example.com/folder/index.html and example.com/folder/ .

Having two links on one page that both go to the same page can be a matter of navigation convenience for site visitors. For instance, a logo at the top can be linked to the home page, and a text link to the home page can also be provided at the bottom with other links. This is putting your visitor first, so they don't have to scroll back to the top of the page to navigate.

I see lots of sites that do this, and they don't appear to be hurt by it.

Of course, it could be a problem in the future...who knows...

[SEOPTI]

" No two links should point to the same page"

This is pure nonsense.

[Master Reader]

I'm with Andy, it seems so, 2 links in a page to the same page.

It had never hurt at all, it means that from now on it will hurt? It seems a bit ridiculous for me :/

[appi2]

Just to possibly help without breaking the WebmasterWorld TOS it was part of the "SNACC Attack! Speed Navigability Accessibility Clarity Comfort."

Mods a link?

[jobonet]

I have approximately 20,000 URLs and each URL has 3 links to the home page. It is indexed and ranked. Multiple links to the same page are not a problem. Multiple URLs with the same content are a problem exactly as digitalghost has said.

[skweb]

I hate to say in such strong terms, but this is BS. I use multiple links to the same page in one article all the time (esp. if it is a long one) - I mean if I am referring to The White House several times in an article and I want people to go there when they wish, there is nothing wrong with links pointing them there.

Never forget that Google says design your website for readers - not robots.

My website is thriving.

[obono]

I read that too. My interpretation was that this would create a poor user experience -like cheated-, as he seemed to have been talking about that.

[AndyA]

I started a new thread on this, but maybe it didn't pass inspection, since it hasn't appeared yet.

I can think of a situation where having two URLs point to the same page is proper and legitimate. Let's say there's a page: example.com/foldera/index.html that is linked internally as it should be: example.com/foldera/ .

That page is divided into sections: red widgets, blue widgets, green widgets, and yellow widgets. There are anchor links on that page to each of the different colors (A name="yellow") for the convenience of site visitors so they don't have to scroll through the page. If another page on your site mentions yellow widgets, and links to this page using the anchor for yellow widgets, the URL would be: example.com/foldera/index.html#yellow

So, would that not be two legitimate and proper uses of having two different URLs going to the same page? Is there another way to link to an anchor on a page besides the way in my example?

[Oliver Henniges]

Ages ago it was good habbit to read (and understand) the whole thread before posting. What jonrichd said in msg 3159509 seems reasonable:

I believe he was talking about two different URLs leading to the same actual content. For example:
page.php?id=4&cat=5 compared to page.php?cat=5&id=4 look like different URLS, but will ultimately lead to the same page content.

[jdMorgan]

The meaning of this prohibition was clearly established early in this thread by johnrichd:

> two different URLs leading to the same actual content.

Reading the earlier posts in this thread may save some embarrassment to those who wish to assume the worst and pile on Google...

Two or more different URLs, including both different domains/subdomains and/or different URL-paths, which lead to the same content is a bad practice, and that is without any doubt what Adam meant.

[added] Oliver beat me to it while I was on the phone. [/added]

Jim

[edited by: jdMorgan at 6:45 pm (utc) on Nov. 17, 2006]

[appi2]

Thanks. Much clearer.

[theBear]

AndyA,

The example of using an internal page anchor (the #yellow) would normally be fine ie:

example.com/#*$!.html#yellow and example.com/#*$!.html are the same url (as near as I can tell Google removes the internal page anchor, we have several pages that use these).

However the example you show of:

example.com/

and

example.com/index.html#yellow

might be (I don't know for certain)

treated as example.com/

and

example.com/index.html

and thus lead to duplicate issues.

[jdMorgan]

Those are definitely two different URLs leading to the same content, and therefore, "non-optimal."

Jim

[AndyA]

Yet it would be optimal for the site visitor, which should be the focus according to Google, no? Why would you send a site visitor to a page, then make them scroll down and hunt to find the content they want when you could take them directly to it with an anchor?

Once again we are not building sites for real people, we are building them for Google. And that supposedly goes against everything Google stands for, and it says so in their guidelines.

I have to change internal links and inconvenience my site visitors in order to have my site ranked well in Google, yet Google tells me to build my site for my visitors, not for them. Seems somewhat hypocritical to me.

[AndyA]

Wanted to add this from another thread:

In the example I used above, the index.html should be dropped entirely, using just the folder and anchor, i.e., /foldera/#yellow and that works.

The thought is that Google drops the anchor, and just follows the URL up to the point the anchor starts.

Given these circumstances, I have a lot of duplicate URLs that I never considered duplicate. I look forward to being able to build pages for my visitors again at some point instead of for Google...but what good does it do if the visitors can't find you? Few will find your page at #250 in the index.

[jdMorgan]

AndyA,

The named anchor "#yellow" is of no concern whatsoever -- Google undoubtedly understands that this is for the use of the browser. A named anchor is not considered to be part of a page URL, but rather a sub-navigation element for use by the browser display function, and only within the page.

The duplicate-content problem arises with URLs like this:

www.example.com/
example.com/
www.example.com/index.html
example.com/index.html

Those are four URLs that (on many if not most sites) will point to the same content, splitting the PR/LinkPop across those four URLs, and thereby diluting it. Ideally, all but one should be 301-Permanently redirected to the one canonical URL for the page, and all links (on-site and off-site) should be to that one canonical URL. As a matter of fact, the redirect should be in place before the site even goes live. This also prevents the search engines from "just picking one" URL --and probably not the one you prefer-- for each page.

That's best practice as it stands today: One page, one URL.

Note that I didn't mention the phrase 'duplicate-content penalty' because until you start actively promoting dozens of alias URLs that all point to the same content, I doubt that there is any penalty involved -- It's simply a self-inflicted wound by dilution of incoming links if only a few alternate URLs are involved. But there's always a lot of FUD involved with this subject, so believe what you will...

Jim

[g1smd]

Everything after the # is simply ignored.

Check your log files. Do bots even request the # part?

I suspect not.

.

I believe that it is only the browser that makes use of the named anchor in knowing where to "jump to" within the page.

The # part has no bearing on how the page is served.

Does a browser even send the # part of the URL to the server?

[AndyA]

I checked my logs, and I believe you are correct, g1smd, the #whatever is apparently only for the use of the browser, and is not passed on to the server, or the server ignores it, not sure which.

At any rate, I've made the fix, I found more than a few duplicate URLs because of this. Hopefully Googlebot will know that my error was not intentional, but simply a lack of knowing that it would be an issue.

Thanks again to all for your advice on this.

[edited by: AndyA at 3:50 pm (utc) on Nov. 20, 2006]