Nofollow for a page with too many internal links?

[MadeWillis]

I know this topic has been discussed a lot in the past, but I have something that I could not find related documentation.

I have a client with over 200 links on their homepage. They have a standard top navigation scheme with 6 or 7 links, but then they have in their main content area a box filled with links to every brand, every type, books, etc. These links are not to specific products, rather links to subcategory pages. In total there are about 150 or so links in this area.

It is my belief that this could be harming their site by linking to so many subcategory pages from their homepage. As of now I can't convince them to remove all the links. I don't currently have the option to see how much these links are being used by visitors, so I can't say for sure they are not important to the visitor.

Would you recommend placing a "nofollow" tag on these links? Any other advice?

[tedster]

I think you're on to something. That doesn't sound like a friendly experience for either the user or the search engine. Crafting a better link structure and information architecture for the site might work wonders, but the quick, temporary fix might be to use nofollow to focus PR where it matters.

[Quadrille]

Unless you really, really know exactly what you are doing by trying to control internal PR, you'd be much better leaving well alone.

Internal links won't hurt your site relative to any other sites, and you'll need to study your site stats very carefully to decide which pages 'need help', which need rewriting ... and which can afford to be damaged.

Usually MUCH better to have a sensible user-friendly navigation system, so that wherever people arrive, they find what they want quickly, easily and logically.

The system you describe does none of those things. Better to fix what's wrong before you consider experimenting!

[MadeWillis]

Thanks for the tips guys!

[bwnbwn]

200 links on the home page jeeze man that to me is a farm.
I am with ted this needs to be fixed as even G recommends no more than a 100 so your double that and I would assume there are issues with the ranking.

By all means get them better organized it must look horrible and way to many links for anyone to take the time to find what they are looking for.

I to began running into this problem on my ecommerce site so I built a page to better organize them and linked it from the front page after I had listed say 30 40 links then I make a link to another page were I orgainzed the links by company.

reduced the links on my front page decreased the load time made it easier to get the pages indexed etc and etc.

200 is 125 to many I assume you are counting the contact us page and all the links on the page to get the number 200?

if I hit a site with 200 links man it is see ya latter your correct make a mock up and show them...

[MadeWillis]

To be exact, there are 245 internal links on the homepage. I'd imagine that the main content area that most of these links are found in could actually help visitors get to the product they want quicker and easier. I don't think this would help someone who doesn't know exactly what they are looking for.

This content area is almost like a little directory. The links are arranges in 5 colums with around 25 links in each column. There are 5 different subcategories (i.e. brands, types, projects, etc). This brings me to another point. These links are aligned vertically, but only <br> tags are creating the line breaks. Do you all recommend using and unordered list rather than this technique? Is it worth changing?

Under this section of links are more links divded by the same categories as above, but only 5 or 6 products (small image and brief caption for each) are featured for each. These links are different from the above links because they are product level pages vs. those above are 2nd or 3rd level subcategory pages, but needless to say, they are still more links.

The page is only 62k in size so I don't think Google is having any problems caching the page or indexing. With as many products as they offer I'm wondering if it makes more sense from a usability standpoint to keep the directory-like link section as is.

Thoughts?

[Quadrille]

On most sites, a site search would be quicker than wading through 245 links.

It's just not user friendly, and link-stuffing brings no SEO advantage.

Look around you ... no sensible site acts like that.

If you don't consider your visitors, and make life easy and welcoming, then all your SEO is wasted.

Much, much, much better to divide the site into a few logical sections, each with it's own local index, including links to other local indexes.

Might be worth seeing what some of your rivals are doing - never be too proud to steal a good idea ;)

(but adapt it to your own needs, of course!)

[Robert Charlton]

Study the home page nav structure of dmoz. It links to main areas, plus roughly 3 of the most popular major subcategories of each area.

So, both users and bots are directed efficiently to sections that would get the most searches. Each of these sections then has its own menuing system, directing users and bots to the next levels. It's a great example of how to make what works best for users work best for SEO, and vice versa.

Too much choice is no choice at all... It's confusion.

[MadeWillis]

Suggestions much appreciated as always!