• BBgmoro

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Get found
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
          Moz API

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. Over-optimizing Internal Linking: Is this real and, if so, what's the happy medium?

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Over-optimizing Internal Linking: Is this real and, if so, what's the happy medium?

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        2
        2
        775
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • SearchStan
          SearchStan Subscriber last edited by

          I have heard a lot about having a solid internal linking structure so that Google can easily discover pages and understand your page hierarchies and correlations and equity can be passed. Often, it's mentioned that it's good to have optimized anchor text, but not too optimized.

          You hear a lot of warnings about how over-optimization can be perceived as spammy: https://neilpatel.com/blog/avoid-over-optimizing/

          But you also see posts and news like this saying that the internal link over-optimization warnings are unfounded or outdated:
          https://www.seroundtable.com/google-no-internal-linking-overoptimization-penalty-27092.html So what's the tea? Is internal linking overoptimization a myth? If it's true, what's the tipping point? Does it have to be super invasive and keyword stuffy to negatively impact rankings? Or does simple light optimization of internal links on every page trigger this?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • effectdigital
            effectdigital last edited by

            Just so you know, EMA (exact-match anchor text), which is also referred to as 'over' link optimisation, is more a concern for your off-site links. In terms of your internal site structure, that's much more lenient. Obviously if it impacted UX (e.g: site nav buttons with ridiculous amounts of text that become over-chunky, annoying users) then that's bad. If you can satisfy UX and also do some light keyword optimisation of your internal site links, I honestly don't see that as a massive problem. If anything it just gives Google more context and direction

            I don't think internal link over-optimisation is a myth, because there's always someone stupid enough to pick up a spoon and run with it (taking it to ridiculous extremes that would also impact UX and the readability of the site). But as long as you don't go completely mental and the links make sense for users (they end up where they would expect to end up, with concise link / button text that doesn't bloat the UI) then you're fine. Don't worry about this overly much, but don't take it to an unreasonable extreme

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Browse Questions

            Explore more categories

            • Moz Tools

              Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

            • SEO Tactics

              Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

            • Community

              Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

            • Digital Marketing

              Chat about tactics outside of SEO

            • Research & Trends

              Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

            • Support

              Connect on product support and feature requests.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • Corbec888

              How does educational organization schema interact with Google's knowledge graph?

              Hi there! I was just wondering if the granular options of the Organization schema, like Educational Organization (http://schema.org/EducationalOrganization) and CollegeOrUniversity (http://schema.org/CollegeOrUniversity) schema work the same when it comes to pulling data into the knowledge graph. I've typically always used the Organization schema for customers but was wondering if there are any drawbacks for going deep into the hierarchy of schema. Cheers 😄

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Corbec888
              0
            • McTaggart

              Why do people put xml sitemaps in subfolders? Why not just the root? What's the best solution?

              Just read this: "The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/." here: http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#location Yet surely it's better to put the sitemaps at the root so you have:
              (a) http://example.com/sitemap.xml 
              http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml
              http://example.com/sitemap-spongecakes.xml 
              and so on... OR this kind of approach - 
              (b) http://example/com/sitemap.xml
              http://example.com/sitemap/chocolatecakes.xml and 
              http://example.com/sitemap/spongecakes.xml I would tend towards (a) rather than (b) - which is the best option? Also, can I keep the structure the same for sitemaps that are subcategories of other sitemaps - for example - for a subcategory of http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml I might create http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes-cherryicing.xml - or should I add a sub folder to turn it into http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes/cherryicing.xml Look forward to reading your comments - Luke

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
              0
            • andyheath

              Will disallowing URL's in the robots.txt file stop those URL's being indexed by Google

              I found a lot of duplicate title tags showing in Google Webmaster Tools. When I visited the URL's that these duplicates belonged to, I found that they were just images from a gallery that we didn't particularly want Google to index. There is no benefit to the end user in these image pages being indexed in Google. Our developer has told us that these urls are created by a module and are not "real" pages in the CMS. They would like to add the following to our robots.txt file Disallow: /catalog/product/gallery/ QUESTION: If the these pages are already indexed by Google, will this adjustment to the robots.txt file help to remove the pages from the index? We don't want these pages to be found.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andyheath
              0
            • friendoffood

              Do 404s really 'lose' link juice?

              It doesn't make sense to me that a 404 causes a loss in link juice, although that is what I've read.  What if you have a page that is legitimate -- think of a merchant oriented page where you sell an item for a given merchant --, and then the merchant closes his doors.  It makes little sense 5 years later to still have their merchant page so why would removing them from your site in any way hurt your site?  I could redirect forever but that makes little sense.  What makes sense to me is keeping the page for a while with an explanation and options for 'similar' products, and then eventually putting in a 404.  I would think the eventual dropping out of the index actually REDUCES the overall link juice (ie less pages), so there is no harm in using a 404 in this way.  It also is a way to avoid the site just getting bigger and bigger and having more and more 'bad' user experiences over time. Am I looking at it wrong? ps I've included this in 'link building' because it is related in a sense -- link 'paring'.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood
              0
            • Aikijeff

              What are Soft 404's and are they a problem

              Hi, I have some old pages that were coming up in google WMT as a 404.  These had links into them so i thought i'd do a 301 back to either the home page or to a relevant category or page. However these are now listed in WMT as soft 404's. I'm not sure what this means and whether google is saying it doesn't like this? Any advice welcomed.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Aikijeff
              0
            • esiow2013

              May know what's the meaning of these parameters in .htaccess?

              Begin HackRepair.com Blacklist RewriteEngine on Abuse Agent Blocking RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^BlackWidow [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Bolt\ 0 [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Bot\ mailto:[email protected] [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} CazoodleBot [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ChinaClaw [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Custo [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Default\ Browser\ 0 [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^DIIbot [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^DISCo [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} discobot [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Download\ Demon [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^eCatch [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ecxi [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EirGrabber [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailCollector [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailSiphon [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailWolf [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Express\ WebPictures [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ExtractorPro [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EyeNetIE [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^FlashGet [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GetRight [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GetWeb! [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Go!Zilla [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Go-Ahead-Got-It [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GrabNet [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Grafula [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} GT::WWW [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} heritrix [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^HMView [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} HTTP::Lite [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} HTTrack [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ia_archiver [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} IDBot [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} id-search [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} id-search.org [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Image\ Stripper [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Image\ Sucker [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Indy\ Library [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^InterGET [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Internet\ Ninja [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^InternetSeer.com [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} IRLbot [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ISC\ Systems\ iRc\ Search\ 2.1 [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Java [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JetCar [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JOC\ Web\ Spider [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^larbin [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^LeechFTP [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} libwww [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} libwww-perl [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Link [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} LinksManager.com_bot [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} linkwalker [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} lwp-trivial [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mass\ Downloader [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Maxthon$ [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} MFC_Tear_Sample [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^microsoft.url [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Microsoft\ URL\ Control [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^MIDown\ tool [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mister\ PiX [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Missigua\ Locator [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mozilla.*Indy [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mozilla.NEWT [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^MSFrontPage [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Navroad [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NearSite [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetAnts [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetSpider [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Net\ Vampire [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetZIP [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Nutch [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Octopus [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline\ Explorer [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline\ Navigator [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^PageGrabber [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} panscient.com [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Papa\ Foto [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^pavuk [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} PECL::HTTP [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^PeoplePal [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^pcBrowser [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} PHPCrawl [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} PleaseCrawl [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^psbot [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^RealDownload [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ReGet [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Rippers\ 0 [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} SBIder [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SeaMonkey$ [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^sitecheck.internetseer.com [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SiteSnagger [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SmartDownload [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Snoopy [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Steeler [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SuperBot [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SuperHTTP [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Surfbot [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^tAkeOut [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Teleport\ Pro [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Toata\ dragostea\ mea\ pentru\ diavola [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} URI::Fetch [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} urllib [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} User-Agent [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^VoidEYE [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web\ Image\ Collector [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web\ Sucker [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Web\ Sucker [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} webalta [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebAuto [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^[Ww]eb[Bb]andit [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} WebCollage [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebCopier [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebFetch [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebGo\ IS [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebLeacher [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebReaper [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebSauger [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Website\ eXtractor [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Website\ Quester [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebStripper [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebWhacker [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebZIP [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Wells\ Search\ II [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} WEP\ Search [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Wget [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Widow [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WWW-Mechanize [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WWWOFFLE [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Xaldon\ WebSpider [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} zermelo [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Zeus [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^(.)Zeus.Webster [NC,OR]
              RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ZyBorg [NC]
              RewriteRule ^. - [F,L] Abuse bot blocking rule end End HackRepair.com Blacklist

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | esiow2013
              1
            • WEB-IRS

              Include Cross Domain Canonical URL's in Sitemap - Yes or No?

              I have several sites that have cross domain canonical tags setup on similar pages.  I am unsure if these pages that are canonicalized to a different domain should be included in the sitemap.  My first thought is no, because I should only include pages in the sitemap that I want indexed. On the other hand, if I include ALL pages on my site in the sitemap, once Google gets to a page that has a cross domain canonical tag, I'm assuming it will just note that and determine if the canonicalized page is the better version.  I have yet to see any errors in GWT about this.   I have seen errors where I included a 301 redirect in my sitemap file.  I suspect its ok, but to me, it seems that Google would rather not find these URL's in a sitemap, have to crawl them time and time again to determine if they are the best page, even though I'm indicating that this page has a similar page that I'd rather have indexed.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WEB-IRS
              0
            • CommercePundit

              How Google treat internal links with rel="nofollow"?

              Today, I was reading about NoFollow on Wikipedia. Following statement is over my head and not able to understand with proper manner. "Google states that their engine takes "nofollow" literally and does not "follow" the link at all. However, experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. These studies reveal that Google does follow the link, but does not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google's index already for other reasons (such as other, non-nofollow links that point to the page)." It's all about indexing and ranking for specific keywords for hyperlink text during external links. I aware about that section. It may not generate in relevant result during any keyword on Google web search. But, what about internal links? I have defined rel="nofollow" attribute on too many internal links. I have archive blog post of Randfish with same subject. I read following question over there. Q. Does Google recommend the use of nofollow internally as a positive method for controlling the flow of internal link love? [In 2007] A: Yes – webmasters can feel free to use nofollow internally to help tell Googlebot which pages they want to receive link juice from other pages
              _
              (Matt's precise words were: The nofollow attribute is just a mechanism that gives webmasters the ability to modify PageRank flow at link-level granularity. Plenty of other mechanisms would also work (e.g. a link through a page that is robot.txt'ed out), but nofollow on individual links is simpler for some folks to use. There's no stigma to using nofollow, even on your own internal links; for Google, nofollow'ed links are dropped out of our link graph; we don't even use such links for discovery. By the way, the nofollow meta tag does that same thing, but at a page level.) Matt has given excellent answer on following question. [In 2011] Q: Should internal links use rel="nofollow"?  A:Matt said: "I don't know how to make it more concrete than that." I use nofollow for each internal link that points to an internal page that has the meta name="robots" content="noindex" tag. Why should I waste Googlebot's ressources and those of my server if in the end the target must not be indexed? As far as I can say and since years, this does not cause any problems at all. For internal page anchors (links with the hash mark in front like "#top", the answer is "no", of course. I am still using nofollow attributes on my website. So, what is current trend? Will it require to use nofollow attribute for internal pages?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2026 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.