Are Navigation Links And Content Links Treated The Same?

[austtr]

If a page has more than one link to the same target page, Google accepts the first link and ignores any others... or so I have been lead to believe.

I'm wondering if that "rule" applies where there is a link in the site navigation (ie.. on every page) and the same link is repeated in the content of a page. In the case of lengthy, informational pages, it can improve the viewers experience to have a relevant link on offer as part of what they are reading.

I'm wondering if the in-content link will be ignored due to the "rule" that says all links after the first are ignored?

To me, navigation links are part of the site structure... the site doesn't function without them. An in-content link on the other hand is an editorial decision to offer the reader additional information about the subject they are reading.

I see two very different purposes.... do we know if Google takes the same approach?

[JD_Toims]

If a page has more than one link to the same target page, Google accepts the first link and ignores any others... or so I have been lead to believe.

Link text, to the best of my knowledge, not the actual link/target itself.

I'm wondering if that "rule" applies where there is a link in the site navigation (ie.. on every page) and the same link is repeated in the content of a page.

In the original PageRank paper all links were treated the same. Since then, the web and algo have "evolved" significantly, so I would not expect all links to be treated equally.

I'm wondering if the in-content link will be ignored due to the "rule" that says all links after the first are ignored?

It's a confusing statement many make, because "all but the first link being ignored" had to do with *link text* at the time the studies I know of were conducted, not how many links do or do not "count" in someway, or even how those links are counted, other than text, and one interesting thing that seems to have been discovered by a member here or year or two ago is link text *can* be overruled/discounted based on the content of a page.

An in-content link on the other hand is an editorial decision to offer the reader additional information about the subject they are reading.

I see two very different purposes.... do we know if Google takes the same approach?

I see what you're saying and I cannot say for sure, but I think Google would try to take a similar approach as to "what passes weight" to a page.

EG If there are 10 links on a page and 3 of those links point to a single page, I would think they would try to "count" the page with 3 links pointed to it as "more relevant" to the current page than those with only 1 -- Of course providing "hard data" in this day and age is tough, so it's my "best guess" rather than something substantiated via testing and hard data.

[Clay_More]

The content could be presented before the navigation which would make the content link first on the page.
I've done that sort of thing in the past, along with coming up with creative names rather than "nav" and "content". However, it's kind of difficult to obfuscate a list of links to internal pages.

Now I like to believe that search engines can tell what is navigation and what is content so I let them worry about it rather than me spending time on it.

It is possible to have the "in content" link point to a page that isn't part of the navigation, even if the content is fairly similar to a page that is in the navigation.