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Self-Linking or self-referencing links and links within the same page? Good or bad for SEO?

by GarfieldLordofCats
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Page: www.domain.com/pandabear

in the opening paragraph they have a link to the same page, www.domain.com/pandabear with the anchor text they want to rank, is this a bad or a good practice or it doesnt matter?

and the other question is, if you use anchor text to link within a very long page does it hold any SEO benefits?

Page: www.domain.com/bearspecies

a very long and detailed document with species of bears, and an opening index with links to each species (#grizzly #panda) within the same long document,

good or bad?

thanks
#bad #good #links #page #selflinking #selfreferencing #seo
  • Profile picture of the author expmrb
    I am sorry but I didn't understand what what exactly your queries are?
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    SEO Motionz Forum & Blog- Digital Marketing Forum & Blog,
    Forum Management & Promotion, SEO Tips, Money Making tips etc.
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    • Profile picture of the author GarfieldLordofCats
      I was afraid my explanation wasnt clear enough

      I mean linking on a page to the same page within the text, usually with the anchor text you want to rank for.

      so if the page is www.mysite.com/april and I want to rank for the Kw "april songs", it'd have the text and within the text would have a part where it'd say:

      it was one of my favourite april songs ("april songs" with link to www.mysite.com/april)

      so I believe its known as self referencing link, linking to the same page you're in

      Also my question had a second part which is the linking withint the same page to another section using the "A Name="# link" attribute.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by GarfieldLordofCats View Post

        I was afraid my explanation wasnt clear enough

        I mean linking on a page to the same page within the text, usually with the anchor text you want to rank for.

        so if the page is www.mysite.com/april and I want to rank for the Kw "april songs", it'd have the text and within the text would have a part where it'd say:

        it was one of my favourite april songs ("april songs" with link to www.mysite.com/april)

        so I believe its known as self referencing link, linking to the same page you're in

        Also my question had a second part which is the linking withint the same page to another section using the "A Name="# link" attribute.



        Those are called jump links and yes they can be extremely useful for increasing SERP CTR (Click Through Rate) If done right.











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        • Profile picture of the author GarfieldLordofCats
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by GarfieldLordofCats View Post

            very interesting, thanks!

            Look at those Wikipedia pages, the jump links and Google Sitelinks you see in the screenshots above are all on-page links using hashtags on the same page URL


            Screenshot 1 jump link URL:
            • hxxps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiard_table#Dimensions_2






            Screenshot 2 Google Sitelink URLs:
            • hxxps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_snooker#The_table
            • hxxps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_snooker#The_balls
            • hxxps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_snooker#Objective
            • hxxps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_snooker#Match



            The SEO trick is to break your keyword into two parts, page title keyword + jump link keyword.

            Example keyword: pool table dimensions

            The page title keyword would be pool table and the jump link keyword would be dimensions. Traffic will search for pool table dimensions (example) and If the money page is formatted correctly they'll see a jump link or a Google Sitelink.
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            • Profile picture of the author GarfieldLordofCats
              yeah, I was thinking that I never paid particular attention to how I named the hashtags, big mistake!

              one question though, they seem to use an "id" tag instead of "a name", like this:
              <span class="mw-headline" id="Objective">Objective</span>

              does it make any difference to get those G sitelinks? because I've used before jump links several times and I dont think I've ever got the sitelinks on SERPs, but perhaps was because I didnt name the hashtags accordingly... I dont know
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by GarfieldLordofCats View Post

                yeah, I was thinking that I never paid particular attention to how I named the hashtags, big mistake!

                one question though, they seem to use an "id" tag instead of "a name", like this:
                <span class="mw-headline" id="Objective">Objective</span>

                does it make any difference to get those G sitelinks? because I've used before jump links several times and I dont think I've ever got the sitelinks on SERPs, but perhaps was because I didnt name the hashtags accordingly... I dont know


                Use the id for jump links on the same page.

                There's a few different ways to get Google Sitelinks, same page jump links are one way as you've seen in the Wikipedia examples.

                There's also two types of Google Sitelinks, regular Sitelinks and mega Sitelinks. Mega is a lot harder to get and has more SERP conditions to fill than regular Sitelinks. Google hands out regular Sitelinks like participation trophies, format the page correctly and everyone pretty much qualifies.

                Regular Sitelinks (screenshot below) can be generated by using hierarchy keywords on the same page combined with jump links (# hashtags).

                Example, the main subject of the Wikipedia page is billiard table. Billiard tables have dimensions (keyword). Billiard tables also have different parts for a table, parts and equipment (keyword/s).






                When yous see regular Sitelinks Google always gives each sitelink a weight, starting from the left, the first Sitelink is the main link that triggered Sitelinks in the first place, the other 2 to 4 Sitelinks are filler. They can still be useful but they're there just to fill out the Sitelinks on the SERPs.

                The Sitelink to the right is always the weakest link and relevancy fades out for the search query as you move from left to right on the Sitelinks you see on the SERPs.

                Make sure to setup your page with enough jump links to fill all the Google Sitelink positions on the SERPs , example, you will not get hashtag generated Sitelinks with two jump links on your page. Now if you have say 5 hashtag jump links on the money page you're half way there to get Sitelinks, assuming the HTML is setup correctly.

                It's a lot of little things but once you've done this a few times it's not a big deal, it just takes some planning ahead in how you want to layout the content (text) on the page.

                BTW, regular Sitelinks can simply be other internal pages/URLs that are relevant (example: SEO Silo structure) but that's a whole other technique. Just pointing out there's multiple ways to pull off Google Sitelinks
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  • Profile picture of the author Sclark
    Truly self-referencing links (as in first example) are totally pointless. Apart from messing with UI (it`s nothing but confusion to click a link and land on the same page), there`s no way you can trick Google with that, as it should be totally able to detect that the page is just linking to self. This probably won`t hurt too much, as there are cases when it makes sense (like linking a logo to homepage, even from homepage), but won`t benefit either.

    The second example, in turn, looks ok to me. In case the content is rather long - this is just a superfine method of easing the navigation for users. So it`s even more of a benefit, as you make the page more user-friendly.
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    • Profile picture of the author GarfieldLordofCats
      thanks, it makes sense, but nowadays I'm not sure google rewards common sense, I see so many shady pages using all kind of tricks that beat my whitehat way of doing things that I'm a bit confused
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  • Profile picture of the author Uchiha Itachi
    I'm not entirely understanding the problem you mention,
    as far as I know the create link but was edited in a natural way is a kind of Golden links for SEO, it's much more efficient than having to contact someone and ask them to link to your web site.
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    • Profile picture of the author GarfieldLordofCats
      google "self referencing links" and theres a lot of people who explain it better than I did, its a link to the same page the link is in it. Check yukon's responses, there are very enlightening and go into depth on the subject
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