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usually I stick rigidly with themed internal links - lets say the site is about our freinds the widget family - Id have all 3rd tier sub pages to do with red widgets pointing back to the main 2nd tier red widgets page which in turn points to the top level or home global widgets page.
I tend to stick with the theming both internally and for external links which gives the page a decent chance of looking on topic and having an air of authority about its subject.
Sometimes I get lazy and corrupt this but generally thats the rub and it works well for me.
But some of the competition who seem to out perform me for killer KW's have a bog standard link structure that not only looks crap on the page but seems to go against google version 2004.
What they do is simply lump a whole stack of links from every page on the site - to every other page on the site so you have around 200 text links underlined at the foot of the page. They are all internal links and the page as I say looks terrible. BUT it seems to work and the sites are consistently top doggin despite algo shifts.
Now I dont want to go down this road but Id sure like to know why and how this can possibly have a positive effect on the serps.(and Im talking exclusively the G serps)
Anyone got any ideas?
C
Actually, I'm not sure that link STRUCTURE has that much to do with ranking. I've done it several ways with several different sites and get pretty much the same result, or lack there of. Then again, I'm not a full time SEO professional.
The evidence for the effects of link structure (ie. theme, hiarchical, sequential, crappy, etc.) are anecdotal at best. I'd be curious to know if anyone had a better take on this.
I would say that the link text is the primary concern. Having 200 some-odd links with certian/all keywords, all to each/the same page just might do the trick.
I hate this kind of thing, but it has got me in the top 5 for almost all my pages.
wellzy
I'm thinking the upside to this is the anchor text the various landing pages gain from the links. it also would obviously help more evenly distribute page rank.
I've kind of cut it half-way. on a lot of the less-critical new pages I create I add a bunch of links to various pages with appropriate anchor text - maybe 10 or so to the bottom of each page. Each page gets a different random mix of links - I've put together some scripts to make this easy.
I'm hoping this gets similar effect without hurting user experience significantly. I'm also thinking this is less likely to get cracked down on by google.
I'm keeping my homepage and other major pages clean though.
No results yet - but its only been 10 days or so...
Better to direct focus to the most important sections/pages, IMHO.
We had one site that was site wide nav, about 800 pages. It was fine and very easy to get around in. Then we revised it to focus more on money pages. We get about the same traffic now, but make about 20% more than before the revise.
It's been said before, but if in doubt, look at the way *this* site is organized (and I mean *really* look). :-)
It all depends on your goals. If all you are going for is visitor traffic, and don't care how good it is, how long they stay, or where they end up on your site, it is a great way to do things.
If your goal is to keep that visitor, make it into their bookmarks, or make a sale, it might not be the best route.
A different way of looking at it would be to see if there is something you can do to your navigation to make it have some attributes of those sites, without looking like crap.
The internal anchor text bonus is well worth it IMHO
This method has absolutely no benefit for the visitor because when you stuff the bottom two thirds of your page with text links - in no order whatsoever you can hardly expect people to find what they are looking for.
The curious thing is that Google allows it at all. It goes against many of the principles that G is now trying to enforce on webmasters.
Cavemans approach is the puritan white hat version that Id love to think would work and deliver serps stability. But when your sat there staring at a top ranking site that is consistently up there and rocking, you seriously start thinking what theyre doing really does work. And thats when the white hats usually come off.
The fact that you see the homepage above you does not necessarily mean that their site makes more money (although I understand that it *might* mean that, depending upon natural kw dispersement in your category). The best money comes from getting the traffic flows right.
(The difference between two clicks and three clicks, for example, to get to the page you're looking for, is significant wrt site revenues.)
That said, I understand your question completely. I see the sites you refer to doing well all over the place. But I also saw about two thirds of them vanish over various updates starting with Florida. So if you have the resources to crank out a bunch of the spammier variety, understanding that those sites may blow up at any time, then by all means go for it. But if you're in it for the long haul, as we are with our sites, I'd be *very* careful.
For every business, a critical question that must be answered at some point is: What risk/reward profile am I most comfortable with?
FYI, I believe a lot of webmasters in here might ask you: "Why not do both?"
Ask yourself why and how this sort of spamming works. It gives you keywords anchor text, link count, and distributes pagerank.
The disadvantages are that it looks like crap to the user; it doesn't add any usefulness to the user; it spreads anchor text, link count and pagerank, but it does not control it; and it will likely fail a manual check and will probably fail in the algo at some point in the future.
So what you need to do is figure out a way, with your normal navigation, to have as many of the advantages, with as few of the disadvantages, as possible.
Do you have all the Good Site Design navigational tricks implemented? Bread crumbs, "you might also be interested in" links and the like.
As caveman said, getting the right user to the right page is more important than raw traffic numbers.
This method has absolutely no benefit for the visitor because when you stuff the bottom two thirds of your page with text links - in no order whatsoever you can hardly expect people to find what they are looking for.
I think you are missing the point. These links at the bottom are not made for the user, but for the search engines. It works well IMHO. Looks ugly, but it is highly effective. You can put some space between the bottom of your content and the links so they are not easily seen.
It was really a no brainer for me. My website exists to make money.
wellzy
Also, I read the suggestion somewhere that a link in the normal text flow may be worth more than typical standalone navigation links.
My advise would be:
1. Use a themed/hierarchical link structure, sitemap, etc.
2. Create internal links in the normal text flow wherever relevant.
3. Add some "related links" boxes here and there.
This should give you a fairly optimal ranking as far as internal links are concerned.
