5 replies to this topic

[fine0023]

I've heard it suggested to not have more than 100 links on a page, for the purpose of not overwhelming the user, if not also for search engine friendliness. I'm not sure how certain it is that google and other search engines will actually index all of the links when there are hundreds on a page. I was thinking about drastically shortening my html sitemap page, and putting the bulk of the links on a secondary page or pages (the links that are further down in the hierarchy). I figured I would link to those other pages with the further down links from the sitemap page (and I guess I would call these pages something other than sitemap and would name them based on the subcategory of links they have). Any suggestions about this, or is this unnecessary? I want the more important links that are on the actual sitemap page to have some pagerank value from the sitemap page and not be divided between hundreds of links.

[Jill]

The information about engines indexing only up to 100 links on a page is like 100 years old. You can disregard it.

[fine0023]

Yes. I kind of figured that. But it sort of sounds like it's still suggested anyways: http://www.mattcutts...links-per-page/, for reasons that I don't entirely understand.

[Jill]

I don't think he's talking about sitemaps (but I didn't check your link). For pages of your site, 100 links is a lot. Not because Google can't index more than that, just because it's too much for people to figure out.

[chrishirst]

I always think that the 100 links being "difficult to figure out" should be qualified/tempered with a "visible at the same page location" proviso, because given the proliferation of CSS "drop down menus" and "tabbed" navigation panels etc, where one visible link may be clicked to reveal many other links that are related/categorised/segregated, does mean the confusion that may ensue from having many links on a page is negated somewhat.

The average forum page will often have well in excess of two hundred links on it (three hundred plus with vBulletin) and that doesn't particularly confuse people simply because of the way they are segregated/arranged.

[Michael Martinez]

You should base your sitemap design on how easy it is to use, not on what is assumed to be a safe limit for links on the page. It's one thing to have a relatively small part of your site (like 2-3 sitemap pages) that have 100-200 links; it's quite another thing for every page on your site to have 100-200 links. Users will never click on the vast majority of links.