How does Google count links ?

[mif]

Google says: 'more than 100 links per page is bad'.

But, a page might have 34 links in a navigation menu, 8 in a footer: contact-us, T&C, etc. That's > 40 right there.

And it may well be that a page has 2 x each outbound link. So if there are actually 54 outbound links, but 2 ways of clicking on each - perhaps an icon and a text link to each - is that 108 'links'.

So my question is 'How smart are G and others in working this out?'

And, do they actually mean 'outbound links' - and are smart enough to be ignoring internal navigation & footer links in the '>100 bad' counting?

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As a real-world example http://www.motorcycle.co.uk/parts-tools/exhausts

A simple count returns 257 URLs - though there are only 54 actual outbound places users can click on and get to. Google Analytics reports 'Average Position' 11, which is not disastrous, and its certainly not in the sin-bin...

(Of course, if you are reading this some time in the future - that page may well have changed : )

 

[dazc]

I think Google now say there is no limit to how many links you should have on a page.

 

[Murray]

Google says: 'more than 100 links per page is bad'.

It's just about things getting crawled

If you have a site with barely any inbound links itself but 100's of internal links on every page google probably isn't going to get around to visiting every page, some pages perhaps not at all (at least very often)

Maybe just think of it as a mouse (the gogole bot) in a maze (your site), the more links on the page the bigger the maze, so the mouse isn't going to make it's way all around and see everything before it gets to the end

If you have a lot of strong inbound links, it will send more mouses, they will make their way around the whole maze, so it doesn't matter as much.

It's better to make life easier with a good navigation that structures your site like a pyramid funneling down from the more important pages you want to rank with the most links at the top.

 

[mif]

(I get crawled regularly, that's not a problem.
And of course making a complex maze of internal links is bad. )

I am aware that '>100 links bad' is a simplistic statement.

My question is digging deeper than that. Of course G and others are smart enough to work out that the same set of internal navigation links on every page is 'navigation structure'.

And that links to things called 'Contact Us' and the like will be internal housekeeping stuff - G et al are good at semantics.

And if an icon and some closely-adjacent text have the same outbound link should only really count as 1.

So - can we take that as read? Anyone know the definitive word on it?

Which leads us to: if there is a link-count-limit - which actually means *outbound* links - is there a number for '>100 *outbound* links bad'?

(cf the concept of Link Farm - do we still use that phrase?)

 

[martin-s]

mouses

Mice

Worth pointing out that it's 100 unique links anyway..

 

[Murray]

Mice

Worth pointing out that it's 100 unique links anyway..

You know I put mice, and changed it to mouses for some reason, second guessed myself

 

[Murray]

Which leads us to: if there is a link-count-limit - which actually means *outbound* links - is there a number for '>100 *outbound* links bad'?

Sometimes a lot of outbound links on a page can be natural and justified

For instance Nominets list of members

http://www.nominet.org.uk/whoweare/structure/members/list-members

Saying thatm all those links could be NoFollowed really, but when you're the size and obvious authority of nominet it doesn't matter, not going to affect their site overall in a negative way.

Maybe more importantly where all those outbound links are going will be a factor.

Also if you have 100 outbound links on every page that might well look suspicious

 

[mif]

For instance Nominets list of members

http://www.nominet.org.uk/whoweare/structure/members/list-members

Yes, I'm sure I read somewhere, or just assumed they *must* be smart enough to instruct their human reviewers that the likes of a Nominet should be marked as 'special', and ranked manually rather than whatever-the-algorithm-says.

Saying thatm all those links could be NoFollowed really, [...]

I have found that noindex is respected. But I doubt if nofollow is - if I were Google, I'd be wanting to follow-all anyway, to be sure I know where they are going.

Maybe more importantly where all those outbound links are going will be a factor.

Of course. And if they are going to similarly themed sites, I want G to follow them. ...But not if they are Affiliate Links. Or maybe they are OK, since they will be to similarly themed sites. And G can't really complain if we are making money from Affiliate Links, given what they make from their adverts. With our help in adSense.

Interesting tangent in what is G's view: adSense = OK .vs. some-other-affiliate-earning-link = bad !

Also if you have 100 outbound links on every page that might well look suspicious

I'd say no. There are a lot of directory sites out there. Nothing wrong with them. Though I suspect a lot of us have been tarred with the Link Farm brush from time to time.

 

[mif]

BTW For an example of a Directory Site that I know from experience ranks very highly: http://www.javeaonline24.com/javea-restaurants-c58.html

And I would argue that that type of site should rank highly in SEs. It is very useful, and highly relevant to users searching for Restaurants & Bars in Javea.