Home page links

returning great results

[giggle]

Hi

When we put a link to one of our "product" pages onto our home page it doesn't take long until Google picks it up and it appears in a decent position in the SERP's.

Obviously we can't just keep adding links to our home page.

As Google visits our home page every day (or so) I was wondering if there was any benefit to "rotating" our product page links every week on our home page to give them all some exposure.

We do have a site map and the "product" pages do seem to get crawled by Google but it's the placement on the home page the sees them appear in SERP's after a couple of days.

Do you think that Google might not like this "rotation" of home page links and could punish us somehow?

Thanks

Mick

[tedster]

Many sites successfully rotate feature links on the Home Page this way. What will happen is that as a new link gets added, then an older link gets dropped, correct? So only those pages currently linked will get the bump in ranking. Working out a strong site architecture is the best way to get more long-lasting raning improvements.

[giggle]

Thanks Tedster

Yes, I'm intending adding some links every week and removing the links that had been there.

Do you think that, after giving the page a boost as it was linked to from the home page that Google will then "demote" that page when the link is subsequently removed from the home page?

Cheers

Mick

[tedster]

Yes, that is exactly what I've seen happen. That's why I look to the site's internal linking structure as a long-term answer. Use the "features" or "what's new" section of the Home Page as a real thing for your visitors, and not as a mere ranking boost opportunity.

[Simsi]

How does this impact on the effect your navigation structure has on ranking though? If you are linking from the homepage to a page that is 2 levels down, thus bypassing the second level, while it might make sense to the visitor, is Google not stricter on seeing a logical level 1 -> level 2 -> level 3 flow rather than a level 1 -> level 3?

I'd always assumed from reading general experiences here that the logical 1-2-3 flow suited the search engines better and homepage links were better off linking sideways and down to the next level(s) in the logical hierarchy, with each secondary sub-level then linking sideways and down as relevant (repeat to fade).

[edited by: Simsi at 11:57 am (utc) on Nov. 7, 2007]