Search Engine Optimization And Multiple Links

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, 10 of July , 2008 at 9:07 am

I spend time each day reading other search engine optimization posts via email, RSS and through links sent to me. Today I noticed three separate posts on the same topic, using more than one link to a single page using different anchor texts.

They all reached the same conclusions - search engines, particularly Google, on read the first link on a page. One article even tried to no follow the link to see what would happen. Same result, the first link and the anchor text used was the one indexed. Writing about search engine optimization as frequently as we do, it struck me I read this before.

Nothing strange there, we all try things out and report on the results. Checking back through some of our older posts I came across three different posts where I mentioned this outcome. Search engine optimization tells us that internal linking is important, particularly if it is relevant. If your interested I suggest you look at the post on how much anchor text is enough?

To go over some of the ground covered by that post. Search engines hate spam. If you are going to link to an internal page, you only need to do it once. The search engine then understands that the two pages are relevant to each other. If your search engine optimization is up to scratch, a quick comparison between the two pages should confirm it - similar keywords, similar text - not a copy of course - but closely related.

For this reason the link need to be optimized to perfection using keywords that matter. It is also why you will read in some posts why I dislike open links to internal pages through menus or sidebars unless you can guarantee they will be read last by the search engines. On page search engine optimization should only carry one link to any page from another page. If you have two, even if one is in a menu or sidebar, nofollow it. Make sure the link flow is from within the content, not the sidebar.

This is one area that always seems to generate discussions or arguments. A simple philosophy is to use the ‘harm’ principle. Will this action ‘harm’ my search engine optimization program. If having more than one link has the potential to reduce the effect of the most important link - take action. If your action is not going to do any harm in itself - all the more reason to do it.

Using nofollow as part of your search engine optimization strategy wont cause any harm. Having too many links from page A to page B may - sometimes you cannot remove them - so control them.

Category: SEO

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