Argument in the office about number of homepage links

[pavlovapete]

Hi,

we are redesigning our homepage and there is some strident discussion about the number of links on the homepage. There are too many links on the homepage to make the page aesthetically pleasing to some *but* other people are of the view that our homepage is the primary method of telling Google what pages are important and introducing Google to our new pages.

We cycle links every couple of months as we publish new pages. Many of the pages linked to from the homepage don't have many other links from within our own site.

Who is right, who is wrong?
Is a link from our homepage to a sub-page more important than 10 "related" links on "relevant" pages.
Would a link from a quality external site to one of these sub-pages be better than a 3 month link from our homepage to the same sub-page?

Thanks for your help.

[CainIV]

Links to deep content from your homepage do help.

However, at the same time, there is easily a threshhold where the number of links on the homepage can become cumbersome and counter intuitive to the consumer and the search engines.

What we try and do is cycle content to the homepage every week, for example the 5 recent information pieces.

We then try and build external links in to those since in our case we have thousands of pieces of content, and new content every day.

A great book to read in my opinion is Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think". There is some really insightful information in that book that is practical, and might help make critical yet practical decisions for the homepage that your user will likely appreciate.

In the right test environment, all of the changes you make can be tested, so it can be a fun little experience for your workplace :)

[tedster]

If you've got internal pages that also have lots of backlinks, then you can also use those as good places for other internal linking. It's the link juice that a page collects that makes it a good place for internal links, not just the fact that it's the domain root.

[pavlovapete]

Thanks Cain, thanks tedster.

It's the link juice that a page collects that makes it a good place for internal links, not just the fact that it's the domain root.

Exactly. We have a boatload of external links pointing to our homepage.

I'll see what Webmaster tools says about IBLs on other pages.

Cheers

[TheMadScientist]

IMO Something to consider is if there are too many links on the home page for it to look good then it is possible there are too many links on the home page to pass significant PageRank to any of the linked pages...

Here's the basic English version of what I'm saying. (It doesn't actually work exactly like this, because there are other factors, but it's the general point and works well enough for this discussion.)

If you have a total of 10 points of PR to pass and you have 10 links you pass one point to through each link.

If you have a total of 10 points to pass and have 40 links you pass .25 points per link.

The only way to pass more 'points' through each link is to increase your PageRank on your home page or remove some of the links.

Basically the short version in 'nut-shell', readable, non-technical English is: You decrease the value of each individual link with the addition of each link, so IMO it might not be doing you a 'huge service', except for maybe initial discovery, if you have too many links on your home page, because the more you add the more you decrease the value of each...

[pavlovapete]

Thanks TheMadScientist,

that is an idea worthy of discussion.

I have:
- a left-side javascript navigator with 19 links to top-level "section" pages
- 8 on-page links to sections
- 40 sub-page links which change (on average) every couple of months

My feeling is that this is not excessive.

I recall studying the MS homepage years ago - they had 200+ links on their homepage.

[Robert Charlton]

I recall studying the MS homepage years ago - they had 200+ links on their homepage.

You simply can't use a site like Microsoft as a model... nor any of those giant sites. The rules are different for them, because they have so many more inbound links than you do.

I have:
- a left-side javascript navigator with 19 links to top-level "section" pages
- 8 on-page links to sections
- 40 sub-page links which change (on average) every couple of months

A main consideration here is that you're channeling more link juice from your home page to 40 sub-pages than you are to 27 section pages (ie, 19+8), each of which (I assume) is linking to many pages (and possibly sub-sections that are linking to pages) below them. So prioritization becomes an important consideration. How important are those individual pages you're linking to? Are they important enough to outweigh perhaps several hundreds or thousands of other pages? Maybe they are... maybe they're not.

If you've got enough inbound links coming into your section pages from the outside, this top-down linking from the home page may not be a major factor, but you really need to check that out.

Also, certain types of sites naturally attract inbounds to subsections, but many don't. Balancing a top-down hierarchical structure vs individual page emphasis from the home page can get very tricky.

[pavlovapete]

Thanks Robert Charlton

You simply can't use a site like Microsoft as a model

- fair enough, good point.

How important are those individual pages you're linking to? Are they important enough to outweigh perhaps several hundreds or thousands of other pages?

- I don't have the data to answer this. I guess it depends on the intent of the user and which page/s would service that intent. I don't know our "money queries". Plus we are a non-profit so advocacy (non-commercial)is a business priority

you really need to check that out

- yes you are right.

Balancing a top-down hierarchical structure vs individual page emphasis from the home page can get very tricky.

- yes. I am seeing that now.

Thanks

[tangor]

Some say a general rule of thumb in 100 links or less on home page. Some say that doesn't matter. All I know is that there are few sites with several hundred categories that need a place on the index. I tend to serve the user with logical drill down capabilities in the most compact form possible so visitors can find things from the index. Can't really say which is correct because I have seen sites with multiple hundred links work just fine.

[pavlovapete]

Thanks tangor

I tend to serve the user with logical drill down capabilities in the most compact form possible so visitors can find things from the index.

When designing the site we had a motto "3 clicks and you are there" meaning that you could get to any page on the site with a couple of clicks. We used a javascript flyout navigator.

Now we are not so sure about the navigator - people are saying the site is hard to navigate. too many top levels to choose from. So now we appear to be heading in the opposite direction - reduce the number of top level pages and increase the sublevels - 10 clicks and you are there.

And of course search can be seen as the "new" navigation. Either use site search or Google and they get to the page they are after.

Faceted browsing has always interested me - different taxonomies for different purposes.

Information Architecture and site design - It is difficult.

[tedster]

Information Architecture and site design - It is difficult.

Agreed - IA is the most under-appreciated discipline that touches a website. And it can make all the difference in success or failure. For many years, even top sites tried to cram too much onto the Home page.

The current trend I'm seeing on big corporate sites is to expose too little in the navigation, and also to say so little in the copy that there's little chance for any long tail terms. Often there's little chance for non-brand terms, as well. Another sign of this problem is a high bounce rate, even for search traffic using dead-on keywords.

How to link from the Home Page is always a balancing act - and the human visitors should take top priority, IMO. Trying to make sure you drive PR from the Home Page into every nook and cranny can create a chaos for human visitors -- and it's not all that good for search engines either, but they do a bit better on the whole, because they don't have eyes to get confused by ;)

[tangor]

Over the years I've tried several hierarchy designs. Some work far better than others. These days I don't experiment as much.

10-20 links front page, each leading to subindexes with article descriptions for 20-40 which link to either actual articles or (multiple) subindex2 each linking to 20-50. Count'em up... that's a lot of pages but the presentation is logical for drill down. Interlinked back to pages above, of course. The SE's find'em and folks can get there direct from the serps. Just seems to make more sense to me.

[internetheaven]

Who is right, who is wrong?
Is a link from our homepage to a sub-page more important than 10 "related" links on "relevant" pages.
Would a link from a quality external site to one of these sub-pages be better than a 3 month link from our homepage to the same sub-page?

I think such a question is very site-specific. If you've got a PR2 homepage with 10 inbounds ... don't think it makes a whole lot of difference. However, if nearly all your external backlinks point to your homepage only, then you're going to have to rely on it to spread link juice throughout the site.

The bigger question is, WHAT pages should you link to, not how many or for how long. If you have 100 pages and only 10 of them are ones you're looking to (or have a chance of) ranking high then focus on them rather than spreading yourself thin and getting lousy rankings for all 100.