Introduction to Internal Site Navigation and Anchor Text
Google’s John Mueller addressed a question about internal site navigation where an SEO was concerned about using the same anchor text in four sitewide sections across an entire website, potentially diluting the ability to rank for a keyword phrase.
Link In Four Navigational Areas
The person asking the question had a client with four navigational areas with links across the entire site. One of the links was repeated across each of the four navigational areas, using the exact same anchor text. The concern was that using that phrase multiple times across the entire site might cause it to appear overused.
Roots of Why SEOs Worry About Anchor Text Overuse
There’s a longtime concern in the SEO industry about overusing anchor text. This concern arose in 2005 because of Google’s announced use of statistical analysis, which can identify unnatural linking patterns. Over the years, this concern has evolved to worrying about “diluting” the impact of anchor text, which has no foundation in anything Google said, although Google is on record as saying that they’re dampening sitewide links.
Google’s Approach to Sitewide Links
Google has been dividing a page into its constituent parts, such as the header section, sitewide navigation, sidebars, main content, in-content navigation, advertising, and footers, since at least 2004. Google has also been dampening the effect of external sitewide links and internal sitewide links so that the links only count as one link, and not with the full power of the number of links. This change was made to prevent the manipulation of search engines through the use of sitewide links.
Sitewide Links And Dilution
Today, we find an SEO who’s worrying about a sitewide anchor text link being “diluted.” However, if we already know that Google recognizes sidebars, menus, and footers and separates them out from the main content, and we know that Google doesn’t count a sitewide link as a multiple but rather counts it as if it only existed on one page, then we already know the answer to that person’s question, which is that no, it’s not going to be a big deal because it’s a navigational sitewide link, which is not meaningful other than to tell Google that it’s an important page for the site.
Contextual Links vs. Navigational Links
A sitewide navigational link is important but it’s not the same as a contextual link from within content. A contextual link has meaning because it says something about the page being linked to. One is not better than the other; they’re just different kinds of links.
A Question from an SEO
The SEO asked: "Hey, a client has 4 navs. A Main Menu, Footer Links, Sidebar Quicklinks & a Related Pages Mini-Nav in posts. Not for SEO but they have quadrupled the internal link profile to a key page on a single anchor. Any risk that we’re diluting the ability to rank that keyword with “overuse”?"
Google’s John Mueller Responds
Google’s John Mueller responded with a comment about a flat site structure and an answer to the query posed by the SEO: "I think (it’s been years) that was more about a site that links from all pages to all pages, where you lose context of how pages sit within the site. I don’t think that’s your situation. Having 4 identical links on a page to another page seems fine & common to me, I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Lots Of Duplication
The SEO responded that the duplicated content along the sidebars were HTML and not “navigation” and that they were concerned that this introduced a lot of duplication. However, Mueller’s answer still applies. It doesn’t matter if they are semantically sidebars and related pages. What’s important is that they are not the main content, which is what Google is focused on.
Google’s Martin Splitt on Centerpiece Annotation
Google’s Martin Splitt went into detail about this four years ago, where he talked about the Centerpiece Annotation. He explained how they identify related content links and other stuff that’s not the main content. This means that Google can distinguish between the main content and other elements on a webpage, such as sidebars and menus.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the concern about diluting the ability to rank for a keyword phrase by using the same anchor text in four sitewide sections across an entire website is unfounded. Google’s approach to sitewide links and its ability to distinguish between main content and other elements on a webpage mean that using the same anchor text in multiple navigational areas will not have a significant impact on a website’s ability to rank for a keyword phrase. As John Mueller said, "Having 4 identical links on a page to another page seems fine & common to me, I wouldn’t worry about that.”