Forum Moderators: open
However, we're entering a new industry and the top competitor has about 60 links in his navigation bar all of which appear on every one of those 60 pages. They're doing very well in the SERPs considering their content (which is somewhat poor) and their backlinks are not too impressive (hence we're charging in!).
Usually I go with doing what I know works best, but I'm just wondering with the importance of internal anchor text being whatever it currently is, and the importance of links from the homepage, what are some of your recommendations for a site that will consist of 100 or so pages?
Jefe
Why would you be penalized for having a consistent means of navigation?
has about 60 links in his navigation barin a case like that you'll only be able to put a 40% of the links in each file that G would normally accept (they say that links on a file should be 100 or fewer)... and getting over that limit could hurt the site. Also,
to get knocked off in the SERP's
Greetings,
Herenvardö
I'm thinking that the theme structure is the way to go for the long run and with our improved optimization it should be better now, I'm just a little concerned that we wont out rank them for the sub category terms (the ones that would only have links from our main category pages and not the home page (2 levels deep) )
A flat structure is actually a good design for smaller sites. But 60 pages is really pushing that limit.
You should go with what you know.
As for internal anchor text, I have been bouncing around between #1 and #5 on a fairly popular term (even at #5 it is often my top traffic producer in a given month) for the last year. There are not any external links to this page, as it is simply a navigation page, one level up from the real content. This phrase is used in 100% of the internal links to this file. Most of the other pages in the top 10 for this search are commercial sites that are actually fighting for this phrase.
So yeah, internal anchor text can count for a lot. But here is the kicker, this is on a hierarchtical structured site. There are about 300 on-topic content pages down below it in the structure that link back to it through a cookie crumb. Many of those pages have deep links to them. It sure seems to me that flat doesn't have that big of an advantage when it comes to internal anchor text.
I know a company that all they do is build 40-60 page websites for thier clients, with all the pages in the nav, each for a key phrase, and they do extremely well.
I mean, it's obvious some people are really pulling this off no problem, but I hate sinking to the level of.... to compete. Do they do Aff. stuff Jeremy?
It sure seems to me that flat doesn't have that big of an advantage when it comes to internal anchor text.
I would think that it doesn't have an unsurmountable advantage, I'm just wondering how difficult to overcome it will be for a relatively large amount of key phrases 100-150 if I have to add extra to every one of them in terms of inbounds, etc.
I'd really like to know, all else being equal, if the site with the 60 nav links went up against a site with 10 main cats and 6 sub-cats in each of them, how many external (inbound) links the sub-cats would need on the site with levels to compete against the pages on the flat site which would all have 60 internal links.
Jeremy, BigDave; both knowledgable why couldn't you be in congruence. That would be much more convincing!
As far as the sites I was talking about, they are not affiliates, just straight seo content sites. Of course thier main goal is not to keep the visitor or encourage repeat visitors. It's purpose is to inform clients about whatever they are searching for and recommend they visit the real site the seo is working for.
Using a flat nav for an ecommerce or a large site you want people to return to is not the way to go. So the question is, why would anyone use a flat nav. The answer is that witha flat nav, you automatically have 60 links pointing to each article, each with the keyphrase as the anchor text.
There is no question that you can do incredibly well with a flat site. For sites of less than 150 pages, I suspect that there is a good chance that they will rank higher, faster than a similar sized themed pyramid.
But you will hit your limit on what you can do to the site much faster with the flat site. I was pointing out that I have more internal anchor text pointing at some of my pages than that site, even without a flat nav structure. What I didn't point out was that this page *does* have a link from the home page, but not as part of the general navigation bar.
You have more tools available to you with your pyramid site than they do. If you use them well, you should bet them quite handily on most of those keywords. It just might take a little more work.
It is also much harder to build a site that will appeal to your visitors, which is vital to your success, with a large flat site.
Jeremy,
I didn't catch the "asking for removal part", and I don't agree with that either. It's not even really something that should set off alarms, just poor structure if the site gets too big (as Dave said smaller sites can do well with flatnav).
Dave,
thanks for going into a little detail about having the link from home, etc, etc. We do very well with having our themed structures with links pointing back to parent categories using themed but randomized links that match content on the sub-page and the parent page. I think we'll keep on pushing in this direction and if the sub is tough to hit #1 we'll have to boost it from some content link in the main body of the homepage.
I wish when we developed our site we had a radio button or check box in admin to include subs under the parent cat on the navigation of the homepage so that if it's an extra tough or extra important subpage it gets the help it needs. We're doing this on all our new sites now.
Thanks Gentlemen.
