Google guidelines on how pages should be reached

[member22]

In its guidelines Google says that " Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link. "

I see many websites rank very well without having any text links through their website.

How is it possible ?

[piatkow]

"Should" - its advice not an instruction.

Presumably other factors have sufficient weight to compensate.

[member22]

What other factors are you talking about ? do you mean that with just high quality external links you can obtain the same rankings ?

[rainborick]

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a website that is completely devoid of static HTML links. That guideline originated when dynamic JavaScript menus were proliferating, before Google was so adept at interpreting JavaScript, and when there was still a significant portion of users ran with JavaScript disabled or used devices that didn't support it. The emphasis on "text" is probably overstated. Image links can present problems for the visually impaired, but with proper mark-up, they work just fine.

[lucy24]

Translated into English:

There should be a way to get to every page that you want people to get to. That's not so unreasonable is it? ;)

An image-as-link is fine if it's got appropriate alt text. Try a few pages in a text browser like Lynx and see how far you get. Image links definitely won't prevent search engines from finding the linked pages.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Google never says the link has to be on the same domain. If you write 1000 pages and don't interlink any of them you can still rank, and rank well, with a lot of incoming links only.

[lucy24]

If you write 1000 pages and don't interlink any of them you can still rank, and rank well, with a lot of incoming links only.

Wouldn't that infuriate your human users? "I know it's on this site somewhere, but I can't find it!" (I have personally experienced this.)

[LifeinAsia]

"I know it's on this site somewhere, but I can't find it!" (I have personally experienced this.)

Did you try looking for it in Google? :)

Like so many of Google's "guidelines" no one particular rule is going to make a particular site rank (or prevent it from ranking).

[lucy24]

Did you try looking for it in Google?

Only when it's on wikipedia. If a type-in for /wiki/best-guess-at-article-title doesn't work, Option B is Google. I realize there exist people who can find things via wiki searches. I am not one of them.