Weekly SEO news: 15 September 2015
Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

Most people know that the (good and bad) links from other websites are a very important signal for Google's ranking algorithms. However, the links on your own website also influence the position of your web pages in Google's search results. 

This week's article explains how to optimize the internal linking structure of your website to make sure that search engines will index your pages correctly.

In the news: redirecting pages is okay if the target is equivalent to the original page, URL mentions are not the same as links, Google testing infinite result pages, and more.

Table of contents:

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO

1. How the internal links on your site can improve your search engine rankings

Most people know that the (good and bad) links from other websites are a very important signal for Google's ranking algorithms. However, the links on your own website also influence the position of your web pages in Google's search results. 

This article explains how to optimize the internal linking structure of your website to make sure that search engines will index your pages correctly.

Google links

The links in your website navigation have a major impact

The navigation menu of your website has a big influence on the linked pages as it appears on all pages of your site.

If all pages of your website link to your company profile page with the anchor text "About" then it's very likely that someone who searches for "about company name" will get this page in the search results.

Use your keywords in the menu on your website to show search engines that your pages are relevant to these keywords.

Links to top categories help search engines to categorize your pages

Breadcrumbs are a good way to link product pages to the top categories. Breadcrumbs provide a trail for the user to follow back to the main web page.

Links to related products help search engines to find the right pages

Link from one product page to the other. If you sell sneakers and sports shoes, link from the sneakers page to the sports shoes page and vice versa.

Use meaningful anchor texts that contain related keywords to link from one page to the other.

Cross-linking categories can improve the relevancy

Links between the category pages on your website are an opportunity to pass authority to the category pages. In general, category pages rank higher in the navigational structure of a website than product pages.

For that reason, they can be more important than product pages. Link your category pages with keyword rich anchor texts that describe the categories.

Use your blog to link to the right product pages and category pages

If a blog post is relevant to a product or category page on your website, you should link to that page from within the body text of the blog post.

If possible, use the keywords for which you want to get high rankings. If that doesn't look natural, use a relevant anchor text that describes the product or category page.

If the link does not fit into the article, add relevant links below the regular text: "Related: this category page."

Channel link power and authority to the most important pages of your site

When you optimize the internal linking structure of your website, you channel the link power and authority of your pages to the most important pages of your website.

Google understands contexts. If you use relevant anchor texts on your website, you will help Google to rank your web pages for the right keywords. A good internal linking structure will also help your website visitors to find the right pages more quickly.

Use the website audit tool in SEOprofiler to find the pages that require the most clicks to be found. You might be surprised that many pages of your website are hidden from your visitors.

If you haven't done it yet, create your SEOprofiler account now and try the website audit tool now:

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2. Search engine news and articles of the week
Google: you can use the rel=canonical tag if the pages are equivalent

"If these pages are equivalent, even if they’re not 100% identical, I’d use a rel=canonical here. With that, all of the signals (such as links to those pages) that we have for the 'set' of URLs will be combined in your preferred version.

Using a noindex on the other hand would result in only one page being indexed, with all the other pages from that set – and any associated signals we might have – dropping out."


GoogleDoes Google treat URL mentions like links?

"In neither case did we see any rankings change. This would imply that Google does not consider an URL Mention to be a signal. Or, at the very least, if it is used as a signal, that it’s weak in comparison to the other factors that Google considers, as there was no observable impact."


Google: web pages vs web posts are the same for indexing

"A webmaster asked in a Google Webmaster Help thread asked if there is a difference in how Google indexes and ranks web pages versus web posts. [...] But technically there is no difference to that and publishing a new web page on your web site. Posts are just the blogger term for a new article, which resides on a new web page.

So John Mueller of Google had to say, there is no difference. John said, 'nope, it doesn't matter to us what you use to create those pages or posts -- that's up to you.'"


GoogleGoogle testing infinite scroll search results?

"Kevin Gibbons shared on Twitter that he was seeing Google test infinite scroll search results. That means, no more ten results on a page but rather, Google would continue loading more and more search results as you scroll down the page."

The anatomy of a local search result in Google

"Recently Google changed the amount of Google My Business listings it shows on every page of search results. In the past, you could have seen up to 10 Google My Business listings. Then it went to the 7 pack of local listings. Google has confirmed that it will only show 3 Google My Business listings in local search results. If you ranked in position 4-10 you no longer show on those local map listings."


Search engine newslets

  • Google: I'd avoid using NoIndex In robots.txt file.
  • Microsoft is using Bing to discourage Windows 10 users from downloading Chrome and Firefox.
  • AdWords changes the definition of conversions for reporting & columns.
3. Recommended resources

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4. Previous articles
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