On page with multiple links to another page, which link is counted?

[member22]

Let's say I have a webpage where I have 2 links that link to another page of my site ( those 2 links link to the exact same page of my site )

I have 1 link which is a text link in the content and 1 link which is in a side menu that I designed on that page with other links.

Which one does google count, does google count the 1 st link it sees on the page ? or does it only count the one that passes PR ?

[deadsea]

In the case of duplicate links, only one passes PR and anchor text. I believe that it is the one that comes first in the source code. (Caveat, I haven't tested this for three years, its likely to change at some point if it hasn't already).

At the time that I tested it, you could add a hash tag to one of the links to get them to both pass PR and anchor text. Eg, link to both:
/page.html#top
/page.html

We originally made the mistake of using rel=nofollow on the link that we didn't want Google to pay attention to. This turned out to be a BAD idea. When googlebot finds duplicate links, one with a nofollow and one without, it treats both as if they had nofollow.

Of course these days, Google seems to be cracking down on using keyword rich anchor text internally. It may not help you to get the link with the better anchor text to "count" these days (and it could hurt you).

[smithaa02]

Cutts had an interesting video on site-wide links that kind of ties into your question:

[youtube.com...]

He made an interesting reference to combining links and how it compared to keyword density in that each subsequent keyword was valued less and less to the total (asymptotically diminishing returns as he put it). That he would compare kw density to links might suggest a similar principal is at work.

Getting back to your original question I don't have an exact answer as to which link would get counted the most (if they aren't combined) but suspect google would value the link most likely to be clicked by a real user (top of the page...outside the boiler-plate IMO would be considered better than say a footer boiler-plate link).

[gouri]

If you have two links from a page going to another page, one of them from the navigation and more of a general word or phrase and the second one located in the body text of the page (a keyword phrase that the linked to page is trying to rank for), would the second link count?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

It's my understanding that all links on a page get a share of the rank to pass, including links found within javascript and possibly even just url mentions without hyperlinks. If that's true and only one link to any page is counted then you're losing some rank.

One example that comes to mind is when your site links to a page with a link in the title and a "read more" link or thumbnail image link. All three links split the available rank but only one is credited to the receiving page.

[aakk9999]

All three links split the available rank but only one is credited to the receiving page

Are you sure this is the case when all three links are identical and point to the same page?

Whilst MC did say that only one will pass anchor and PR, it did not say that having a duplicate links pointing to the same page is PR drain.

Not that I know any better as what he said can be taken one way or the other.

[gouri]

I saw this on a website that I am working on:

If I do a search for the domain name and the phrases in the navigation text, the pages of the site show up in the SERP and most of them show the navigation, but a couple of them don't. The ones that don't show the navigation have a link in the body text that have some similarity to the anchor text in the navigation link.

This is just an example that I thought of, but it will show you what I am seeing. I enter the following in the search box (widgetbuilding is the domain without the extension):

widgetbuilding about us history seo services results testimonials

After typing the above, I see the pages of the site in the SERP and most of them show the navigation anchor text.
The ones that do not show the navigation anchor text have a link in the body section such as SEO Services for Long-term Campaign so for that page in the SERP, under the title tag, I see SOME TEXT....SEO Services for Long-term Campaign. Both the link in the navigation and in the body text are going to the same page.

Could this mean that only one of the links is being counted because they are seen as the same, and I am seeing the one that is counted from the page?

Should I change one of them so that both of them are counted? The one in the navigation I think that I will keep, maybe the one in the body text I can change so that it doesn't start the same way as the one in the navigation?

[tedster]

The last time I saw this tested, anchor text beyond the first link never counted when the href attribute was exactly the same. There was some evidence, however, that when the href attribute used a slightly different URL (just a fragment identifier, for instance) then the anchor text was counted.

This was about two years back, so you might want to text it first. However, I wouldn't do testing on an important "production" domain. Internal anchor text, particularly in the content area, is a "ticklish" area for Google and frequent changes have resulted in ranking losses for some people - losses that didn't go away event if they reverted to the original anchor text.

[ken_b]

There was some evidence, however, that when the href attribute used a slightly different URL (just a fragment identifier, for instance) then the anchor text was counted.

FWIW: I did somewhat of a test on this a while back (probably around the time Tedster mentioned).

What I did was alter some existing links by adding a fragment identifier to one secondary link on each of about 100 pages, all pointing to the same page.

For me that made no difference, no benefit ever turned up.

Makes me think that IF this works, it may need to be applied when the secondary link is first published. I haven't tested that.

[edited by: ken_b at 11:37 pm (utc) on Dec 12, 2012]

[tedster]

Makes me think that IF this works, it may need to be applied when the secondary link is first published.

Since the test that I mentioned was widely publicized, there's also a chance that Google changed something, too!

[plc90210]

If on a page there are two links to another page (one of them nofollow and the other dofollow), does the dofollow link get counted and the nofollow link ignored or do both links get ignored or is it like it is with anchor text where the first link gets counted and all the other ones get ignored?

[deadsea]

plc90210: In your situation, both links get ignored. Don't use nofollow to try to get Google to pay attention to the second link. Google will just start to ignore both of them.

[MikeNoLastName]

G Keeps insisting it is "always about the user experience", but when someone out-thinks them outside the box, they come up with dumb limitations like this. I really think they should just post a single template and dictate "Here is what ye webpage shall look like for evermore servant, so we can suck all the information we need to make our own information engine tops.... or else"

(oh wait they already have with that silly Data highlighter tool! Has anyone tried using that yet it is useless if you type all your data freehand. I was literally screaming at it to stop ASSUMING!)

So, Okay, how about this situation. We used to have 3 links to the home page. One in the footer, and two in the header (all the better to innocently make it a BETTER USER EXPERIENCE! )
When we heard about this multiple links thing we went back and evaluated things. In the header we had a logo linked to the home page: <A HREF="example.com"><IMG SRC= ALT="Widget Info"></A>
followed right below it (<BR>)
by some loose keyword text: "<A HREF="example.com">For more information about widgets click here</A>"

So when we heard about this we got creative (again) and simply deleted the footer link and in the two header links, we deleted the second A HREF and </A> and changed it to:
<A HREF="example.com"><IMG SRC= ALT="Widget Info"><BR>For more information about widgets click here</A>"

So in summary we have a graphic logo with an alt text PLUS plain text following on the next line all packed into ONE link. Granted it might not pass the very latest w3 org specs, (haven't really checked) but has anyone tried that and should that make things worse or better. Can't really tell one way or the other for us, as G hates us no matter what.