The Missing Link - On To Example 2
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Example 2
Now consider this site:
Page 1 links to page 2
Page 1 links to page 3
Page 1 links to page 4
Page 1 links to page 5
Page 1 links to page 6
Page 1 links to page 7
Page 1 links to page 8
This site has links to all pages of the site on page 1. The spider comes along and can follow all links on page 1. The spider can collect information about every page in your site in just one visit. Which would you prefer? 4 months to get all of your pages included in a search engine database, or 1 month. OK, that is a rhetorical question.
Figure 2 A 2 level deep web site
So, is it best to link to all of your site's pages from the homepage? The answer is a little more complicated than just saying yes or no. It depends on other issues like Google Page Rank (PR) and how you want to spread PR around your site.
These issues are beyond the scope of this article, but see Appendix 1 on site linking strategies for a brief explanation. In terms of getting your site found, and included in a search engine, it is definitely better to have links to all of your pages from a homepage, or no more than 2 or 3 levels deep.
Can You See a Problem With This?
As your site grows, you will have more and more links on the homepage. Eventually there will be no room for content on the homepage. Is this what you want? I have web sites in excess of 3000 pages. I definitely cannot include links to all of these pages on a home page.
Is There a Solution?
Of course. The solution is to use a site map. The sitemap will be a page (or collection of pages all linked together) that includes links to every other page on your site. From the sitemap, the search engine spiders can find every single page of your site. There is no need to include all of these links on your homepage. You just link to the sitemap from your homepage. That means one single link on the homepage, leading to a level 2 page that has links to all of your pages.
Consider this scenario:
Page 1 links to sitemap page
Sitemap page links to page 2
Sitemap page links to page 3
Sitemap page links to page 4
Sitemap page links to page 5
Sitemap page links to page 6
Sitemap page links to page 7
Sitemap page links to page 8
This site is 3 levels deep. So using our earlier examples of a spider visit going through 2 levels each visit, how long will it take these 8 pages to be found?
Next: Making the Spider Happy >>
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