38 Cameron

Use Javascript links to limit the number of links on a page in order to send link juice to pages that need it.

References:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmoHmfy5AcQ&feature=channel
• http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

Q: Does this mean “PageRank sculpting” (trying to change how PageRank flows within your site using e.g. nofollow) is a bad idea?

A: I wouldn’t recommend it, because it isn’t the most effective way to utilize your PageRank. In general, I would let PageRank flow freely within your site. The notion of “PageRank sculpting” has always been a second- or third-order recommendation for us. I would recommend the first-order things to pay attention to are 1) making great content that will attract links in the first place, and 2) choosing a site architecture that makes your site usable/crawlable for humans and search engines alike.

For example, it makes a much bigger difference to make sure that people (and bots) can reach the pages on your site by clicking links than it ever did to sculpt PageRank. If you run an e-commerce site, another example of good site architecture would be putting products front-and-center on your web site vs. burying them deep within your site so that visitors and search engines have to click on many links to get to your products.

There may be a minuscule number of pages (such as links to a shopping cart or to a login page) that I might add nofollow on, just because those pages are different for every user and they aren’t that helpful to show up in search engines. But in general, I wouldn’t recommend PageRank sculpting.

While the reference isn’t about Javascript links directly, it mentions a number of architectural facts to be informed about:

• 1^st order of attention making great content that will attract links in the first place
• 2^nd order of attention is choosing a site architecture that makes your site usable/crawlable for humans and search engines

1^st Order of Attention – Making Great Content That Will Attract Links

In this first order of attention we recognize that some pages of a website are not really filled with great content and as such are worthless for attracting links. Some clear examples are a shopping cart link and a link to a login page have no ability to attract links because they don’t offer any content that is remotely appealing to anyone with a website or an audience.

2^nd Order of Attention – Site Architecture for Humans and Search Engines

In the second order of attention is more of a mindset a “search user” and a “visitor” while the same person their mindsets can be dramatically different. A visitor of a website may very well be interested in registering, logging in, or shipping and return policies while a search engine user would never be.

Therefore it is best to hide these pages from the search engine user and search engine alike.

It’s worth noting that while these pages are few they tend to garner internal links from every single page on the website thus to the search engine it would deem these pages of high importance to search engine users when in fact no searcher would every be interested in them. On most websites Javascript links for these destination urls would be ideal:

• checkout
• contact us
• control panel
• formmail
• login
• logout
• privacy policy
• register
• return policy
• rss feeds (2 or more)
• shipping policy
• shopping cart

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