Getting a good homepage ranking

[Mike]

Hi all,

For a new site of mine I want to get a good homepage ranking. I'm not that bothered about the subpages as noone would find them through a search engine anyway.

To go about this would I put links to EVERY page on the site from the homepage? Then link back to the homepage from all the subpages?

Thanks,
Mike

[MarkB]

Hmm - I would think you link to the homepage from all subpages, but keep the front page link count low? (Not that I'm an SEO expert!:))

[r2d2]

The optimum method for this would be to link to every subpage from the homepage, then have just one link on each subpage, and that link going back to the homepage.

[Mike]

The thing is, there's going to be a few hundred links on the homepage. Would it still work?

[r2d2]

Should do, I know Google recommends having 100 or less, but Chris was saying somewhere its just to guide newbie webmasters, and more than a hundred is fine. Many forums and big news sites have loads more than 100 links on a page.

[incka]

Mike, you think there isn't much searches for the sub pages but...

bush shootout 135.4 /day
dancing bush 177.0 /day
javanoid 317.3 /day

To just show a few... Plus all the categories get alot of searches.

[Mike]

Ok, when the site is a month or so old I hope to have around 600-800 subpages. Do you think I should divide these up into categories, then link from the homepage to the categories, the categories to the subpages and homepage, and the subpages to the homepage? If you get all that :p

[r2d2]

Yep, sounds good.

[Mike]

Ok doke :)

Thanks guys :)

[cameron]

Although you didn't say what kind of content it will be, I still don't understand why you think that people wouldn't search for stuff that is in the subpages.

[intelliot]

remember, incoming links still play an important role in rankings. will other sites be linking to your subpages or your homepage?

[Chris]

Actually... to focus PR on the homepage you want a heirarchical linking structure, that means not linking to all your subpages on your homepage.

This is assuming you will have more than one link on each of your subpages (like most sites do). If you really are going to have just one link on your subpages then sure, link to them all from the homepage.

[Mike]

Hmmm, there would be about 6 subpages linked from the homepage. Judging from this diagram (http://www.websitepublisher.net/articleimages/pyramid.jpg) I thought linking them all from the homepage would be right?

What should I do? Link a few then have something called "All Categories" with the others in that?

Thanks,
Mike

[incka]

Mike, my addicting games site focus PR on the homepage and it still has links on the homepage to every page.

[r2d2]

Maximum PR for the homepage is gained by having every single link on the site (other than the homepages links) going to the homepage. This means all the voting power of the site is aimed at the homepage.

Having category pages will mean that most links on these pages will be going to the sub pages, not the homepage.

If you wait till this evening I will post my PR spreadsheet that allows you to test the different scenarios. You may have tried using web based PR examples where you can try different setups. Mine is much more detailed than those and provides very thorough output, and is of course customisable.

[incka]

Can't wait.

[Chris]

Basically, once you put a homepage link on every page, cutting down on other internal site links will put more PR on the homepage. The best way to cut down on internal site links is to use a heirarchical linking structure since you need fewer links per page with that kind of linking structure.

Having only one internal link (pointing to the homepage) would be idea, but many people aren't going to do that for usability reasons.

[r2d2]

Ok, here it is, hopefully it will make sense. There should be comments to hint at what a box/column/row is for, and you should only be able to edit cells you need to. (theres no password though).

http://www.sublime-creation.com/tools.php

Edit: It is currently setup for Mikes optimum setup along with 1 link to the homepage from a PR 6 page with 50 links on.

[Mike]

Heh, thanks for the link r2. Nice tool :) Unfortunately, I don't have excel, only microsoft works spreadsheet, so it doesn't add up the formulas correctly or something? that's the error i got anyway. if i find a computer with it on i'll take another look though :)

To focus PR on the homepage, would this work?


Homepage
| | | | | |
Cat1 Cat2 Cat3 Cat4 Cat5 Cat6
| | | | | |
--- subpages ---

So the homepage links to the category pages, which link back to the homepage. The category pages link to the subpages of them, which also links back to the homepage. Should this work?

Thanks for everyones help :)

Mike

[r2d2]

Yep, thats ur next best option I think.