18 replies to this topic

[Marchy]

I was wondering this. If let say your main keyword is photography. So on your index page you have The word "photography" at different places in your content (index). You are relevant for that keyword. Now in your inner pages let's say you have a page on "lens" and on that page you use the word "photography" in it. Would give more relevancy (weight) to your index page for that keyword because it is linked to your index page. Would it make a difference if I use the keyword or not in the inner page for my index page for the keyword "photography?

[qwerty]

A few points to keep in mind:

It doesn't hurt, and it's quite common, for more than one page on a site to be optimized for some of the same keyword phrases. If your home page is optimized for "photography" and an internal page is optimized for "lens" then it's likely the word "photography" is going to show up on that internal page. Indeed, when you optimize that page for "lens" you may well be optimizing it for "photography lens."

Linking from your interior page to your home page gives your home page more weight. Linking from your interior page to your home page with "photography" in the anchor text gives your home page more weight for "photography."

[Marchy]

It totally make sense but having the word "photography" in my inner content would surely transfer up to link to the home page right?

[Jill]

Just having the word there wouldn't do anything for your home page.

But if you linked it to your home page, then it would help the home page to rank for that phrase.

[Marchy]

This is weird because with time I kind of took for granted that was applying more for link from other sites than mu own.

Good refresher!

[DrMarie]

But if you linked it to your home page, then it would help the home page to rank for that phrase.

Interesting...I was wondering this too! I need to go and check that my main keywords are on my inner pages too.

[kieronhughes]

Interesting...I was wondering this too! I need to go and check that my main keywords are on my inner pages too.

I think for anybody with any doubts about internal page linking, then you should just look at Wikipedia. Granted, they will have external links pointing to most of the articles, but the reason they are ranking so well across all areas is due to the internal linking on every page.

[marketsitepro]

Hey in addition to what everyone else is saying. (side-note) A big myth is that you have to stuff a keyword into a specific page to get it highly ranked. Google checks for keywords SITE-WIDE...So you definitely should have some main keywords added throughout your site THEN cross-link (like kieronhughes showed) that text to the appropriate pages.

[Marchy]

A thing I was wondering is if there is a different where you put a link in your page. Would the footer, navigation section or putting an internal link in the content relevant to the page it links to has different quality?

[qwerty]

It may depend on whether that link is the only one on the page that points to that target page, and if it's not the only one, it may depend on whether it's the first. I've been playing around with some informal tests regarding those questions lately.

[Marchy]

you see that was something I was wondering. Let say you want to give a little power to your home page. A lot of site will have the back link with the word "home" as a text link. This is not really a targeted keyword but like in my case it is the first text I have put and it it is on my navigation. I was even wondering putting it "nofollow" ? It has no utility it is really for the user to go back to the home page.

What do you think?

[qwerty]

Nofollow is supposed to be for "untrusted" links. At least that's what it was created for. Personally, I don't bother linking if the page is untrusted, so I don't use nofollow.

The idea of using nofollow on internal links was a pretty popular fad among SEOs for a little while. They called it "PR sculpting". It never seemed like a good idea to me since I'm not crazy about the thought of declaring that your own pages are untrusted, so I never tried it or recommended its use, and apparently it stopped working while a lot of people were continuing to recommend it and nobody noticed, which I'd say implies that it never worked very well.

[Marchy]

That makes sense. Now if we look at the this forum. I think it is a good example on how to link to the index page. Also they are not using "HOME" but a keyword instead. I was more wondering if using it in text was better but like you guys always answer (and you are right) will it be better for my visitors? lol.

[Marchy]

Now I am wondering if an image with an alternate text linked to the index page. Is the alternate text would do the same as the text link does?

[qwerty]

It definitely serves the same purpose. Whether it carries exactly the same weight I couldn't tell you.