This is the first post about the linking strategy betwen pages on SoftTester and how it might be improved. At the moment the PR drops from 4 on the homepage straight to 2 on the main category pages. This has always puzzled me a bit since on one of my sites which has PR 3, all its main sub pages have a PR of 2 which is no worse than SoftTesters.
I think there are a number of things you could try to improve the PR of the inner pages. Basically you need more internal links. At one point SoftTester was leaking PR like crazy on all its pages with masses of external links on every page. This has now improved with the use of the nofollow attribute but there’s still work to be done to raise the average PR of the site’s pages.
Here’s my recommendations ..
Link to Category Pages from Every Page
The first thing I’d recommend is that every page on SoftTester includes a list of links to the main category pages, i.e. to these pages:
Audio & Multimedia
Business
Communications
Desktop
Development
Education
Games & Entertainment
Graphics Apps
Home & Hobby
Network & Internet
Security & Privacy
Servers
System Utilities
Web Development
Miscellaneous
This can be done in a panel on the right. Not only will it help push PR back up through the categories but it will help people navigate the site.
Nofollow links on program pages
I’d nofollow the external links on the program pages themselves to the author’s own sites, i.e. the bit where is says “Program X” by X Release 2007-11-05 and the Order URLs. You’re giving away PR that you need yourself to get ranked better.
Add Related Program links
On each program page add a list of links to 10 other programs in the same category, i.e. in the lowest level category in which a program sits, e.g. for my invoicing package you might have links to 10 other invoicing packages.
On Each Program Page Link to its Category Page
On the program pages, I can’t see links to the program’s category page. Add a link if it isn’t there. The link should be to the lowest level category in which the program sits.
by ML
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Please don’t think I’m casting ANY of your ideas aside ( I do approve of all of them ) , but I’d like to discuss the whole are then arrive at the solution and make all the changes at once.
I’ve been thinking about program pages over the past few weeks, since we added nofollow to the text ads on all pages. I was thinking that, apart from an hour on the front page and sub category pages, programs aren’t link to anywhere else. The main category pages only have the 60 newest programs.
I was thinking that showing category programs could be extended and replace the text ads on every page. I’m not sure what order they would be shown.
But I am concerned about visibility of program pages to both google and google users.
On the program pages themselves I agree we need to keep users / google and get them to do more. I had thought about putting a list of keywords on the page, which would be links to keyword searches. I thought this might strength the page if they had links to content with lots of similar keywords.
I’m not sure if its possible, but I also thought I should some how link into some sort RSS content?
The right panel you mention, you mean under the adsense box ?
More links of any kind is good! – as long as it doesn’t look messy.
On the category pages the reasons I make the suggestions I do are:-
They sit at the top about almost everything else and they pass the PR
down to the sub category pages and then to the program pages. It would
be good if they got more of it back. It would also help users to
navigate.
I do mean a panel on the right under the Google Ads.
I made a suggestion about linking between program pages themselves by
adding a Related Downloads section. I think this could be very useful
to visitors and would help pass PR around. If it could be done so that
the related programs don’t change too often on each page that would be
ideal. If you look at the big sites, they almost always have a related
programs bit to help users find other similar programs.
Personally, I think the text ads are just in the way but I don’t know
how many people pay for them. I’d be tempted to remove them completely
and put in place a nicer looking set of sponsored ads for the
important programs, i.e. your MDBSecure and IdeasPad programs.
Keyword links sounds good too. But add the related programs links if
possible. They increase linking and also aid visitors.
Also remember to link back from the program pages to the category or
sub category page they are linked from.
The title changes on the program pages should help searches in
conjunction with a hopefully better spread of PR.
Also when you get to the program pages your’re still leaking PR out to
author sites, make these no follow.
I did have the category links “box” on every page at one point, but theres quite a lot of text involved, so I removed it. Thinking about it, maybe that contributed to my reduction in PR, So I also have it on the index page?
In fact, now I think about it, I had it select the current category or sub category, so the user could see which page there were in.
I guess I could add the main categories to the index page, then on category pages show the sub categories for that main category, then the user has to click on a main category link, which will bring up the main category page, to see sub categories in that category…
Did I mention category and sub category LOL
Of course if I do add the categories, under adsense, then I could remove them from the index page where they are now. But this raises the question, which I’ve had from the conception of softtester, what do I have on my front page.
I’m willing to loose my adverts, not making much from them.
At one point I started to log what people downloaded.
I guess I could show some sort of stats / ranking per category?
Perhaps we could setup a bid directory?
Any ideas?
We definetly have to have related programs on the program page, in the same sub category?
“nicer looking set of sponsored ads for the” where the text ads are now? What sort of thing did you mean?
I’d include categories on each page plus links back to the subcategory from which the program was linked. I’d also include even more links which I’ll go into later.
You can always shrink the font a bit for the list of categories.
Changes in internal links won’t drop the PR of the main pages but it might have dropped the PR of internal pages.
… and my feeling is that it’s the PR of the internal pages that really matters since most people will be looking for programs and categories more than anything else.
The problem with the links to the category pages at the moment is that they aren’t linked very well and therefore their PR isn’t boosted as high as it might be.
Same thing with the program pages – they all have low, low PR and then they throw PR out of the softtester site by linking to external sites without a nofollow tag.
… and this is why I think each program page should link to other program pages in softtester, i.e. by adding a Related Downloads section.
Download counts is a good idea, I always like to check these when I visit a site.
Oh, another thing. If you make money from some of the ads, keep them, but if you can save space by removing freebies then do so.
>Add Related Program links
Which program shall I list?, there could be quite a lot in the same sub category.
I’ve been thinking about this myself. It’s a bit tricky.
Could you list a maximum of 10 programs that have matching keywords?
Thats difficult, I have a keywords table, I split the keywords field from the pad file and store each keyword, the program ID and the first letter of the keyword. This is my biggest table.
I’m having difficultly thinking up the query of how to best match programs too it. Think it could be quite intensive.
Ideally I’d match up programs with the same keyword and pick 10 with the highest number of matches. But as I say this could be quite intensive.
Hmmm… I’ll have to have a think about it…
Difficult for me to comment really without understanding a bit more. Would you construct the list dynamically when the page was loaded? I can see how this could take time.
Alternatively could you construct the lists at least partially offline (or at least not on each page load) by creating a sorted table of the top 10 programs for each keyword whenever you accept a new program/ PAD submission?
Of course, until you see this algo running with real data it’s difficult to predict the final quality of the matches for related downloads but other sites try to achieve similar effects – I always find such lists useful.
The benefit of the method – keyword-based – is that the related links should be pretty relevant and the links should be fairly constant, i.e. the relationships between programs shouldn’t change too often thereby avoiding link churn.
Sorted… What do you think
?
Superb!
Just spotted though that some of the program links push you back to the home page – are some pages missing. For example click on the program links on this page: http://www.softtester.com/programs/abest-avi-video-converter.shtml
I think it happens on some of the program links on the home page too.
Yes, I didn’t get round to do any error handling, so I just did a redirect to the home page. I didn’t know what to do for the best with regard to error pages.
However, with them being new programs there should be pages for them.
As a whole, I noticed on sunday that a few main category pages were causing home page redirects, which I fixed. With all the changes I did, still being quite recent, theres bound to be some gremlins.
Perhaps a discussion on error pages could be good? I know in the SEO book I have it says they are bad, the standard ones I mean, I guess I need to have some logging too, so I can check out problems.
http://www.softtester.com/programs/abest-avi-video-converter.shtml
Actually, this page works for me, you sure ?
I’ve now got some error handling in place, so if you do spot any I should get the log that night. but Haven’t seen any so far.
Apart from some missing images, this will have occurred for new programs over the past couple of weeks
I guess at some point I’ll have to go through and fix that and remove any dead images too. Can’t do anything easy / quick to fix that at the moment, unfortunately.
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