Circular Navigation...No, No or Yes, Yes

[incrediblehelp]

A somewhat new way of describing your websites navigation is circular navigation and Matt Cutts and others have said it is a no,no and can cause duplicate content issues on your website. I was wondering if the pros here at WPW can enlighten me as to what their definition on circular navigation is?

I know it means having multiple paths to the same page on your website, but that definition is way to generic for me. In fact having multiple paths to the same page on your website is a good thing from a usability stand point. Maybe "they" mean it is bad to have page A's side navigation menu linking to page B and then within the text of page A you have more links to page B, wikipedia style?

[Katt]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Maybe "they" mean it is bad to have page A's side navigation menu linking to page B and then within the text of page A you have more links to page B, wikipedia style?

I hope that's not what they mean, because I often do something like this in an effort to make things easier for the user.

[incrediblehelp]

I know I do it all the time myself. I wish some others would comment on this.

[CLBridges]

I'm waiting too, cuz I do it just like you guys do <gulp>

[CAD]

Maybe "they" mean it is bad to have page A's side navigation menu linking to page B and then within the text of page A you have more links to page B, wikipedia style?

I hope this is not what they mean either. I do it quite a bit at one of my other websites http://www.classadrivers.com and haven't seen any penalty for it so far....

#2 for trucking jobs
#2 for truck driving jobs
#1 for trucking companies

On the home page, I have 6 links to the same inner page (secure online application) in the top navigation, side navigation, bottom navigation, and a couple of times in the body of the text, and that is just one example.

I also feel it lends to ease of use for our visitors as different folks look for links in different places (or so I have learned from my site visitors)

[CAD]

Scott Harris thinks in this case, the definition of circular navigation is...

a links to b then b links to c then c links to d then d links back to a

This may trap googlebot in a loop in the website. Then, just remember wikipedia...

[CLBridges]

Did a Google search for the term "circular navigation" and found this URL:

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/003398.html

The specific quote:
===============
Jake Baille – True Local
“Dr. Phil on Duplicate Content.” Why does it happen? Top 6 dupe content mistakes: circular navigation. Print-friendly pages. Inconsistent linking. Product only pages. Transparent serving. Bad cloaking.

Circular navigation: cause multiple paths though a website. Fix: define in a consistent way method of addressing a page of content. Ie: brand to category to content or brand to content to category, etc. This is irrespective of navigation path. If you are bread crumbing, track paths through cookies.
===============

It sounds like that's EXACTLY what they're talking about!

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by CAD

I hope this is not what they mean either. I do it quite a bit at one of my other websites http://www.classadrivers.com and haven't seen any penalty for it so far....

Well I don't really see duplication penalties, per say. It seems Google picks one URL over another to show in the search results. Of course this could easily be the one you do not want to show in the SERP's

Many times all Google does is throw the duplicate URL into the Google sin bin, the supplemental index. Of course getting out of this index is no piece of cake.

[CLBridges]

I don't understand why or how 'they' could/would classify different navigation paths as duplicate content.

Different is opposite of duplicate. Besides, all the pages to/from/between are different, so it shouldn't matter if they start somewhere in the middle to get to the end. Who would want to go all the way back to the beginning anyways?

Now that I've succeeded in totally confusing myself..

I hope 'they' straighten this out soon!

[incrediblehelp]

CL that is my initial question. I think my idea of circular navigation might be different from what Cutts and others are referring to it.

[greeneagle]

This topic is definitely worth second guessing until answered. We have never had a problem with relevant link exchanges with our clients, however some of our clients are starting to do business together on a very serious and global basis and want to link to each other.

Will relevancy prevail over spam?

Ken

[incrediblehelp]

Ken so your idea of circular navigation is link exchanges?

[Faglork]

Originally Posted by CLBridges

Circular navigation: cause multiple paths though a website. Fix: define in a consistent way method of addressing a page of content. Ie: brand to category to content or brand to content to category, etc. This is irrespective of navigation path. If you are bread crumbing, track paths through cookies.
===============

It sounds like that's EXACTLY what they're talking about!

Well I'll be damned if I let Google decide on how I layout my navigation. This is ridiculous, sounds like total hullyballoo to me. In short: I don't believe it.

Maybe I still misunderstand what they mean with "circular navigation", though.

Just read the article in the OP:

Matt Cutts of Google says that honest webmasters often worry about duplicate content when they don’t need to. Google tries to return what they feel is the "best" version of a page. A lot of people ask about articles split into parts and then printable versions of the same. Matt says that Google will not penalize for this. Furthermore he says not to worry about duplicate content across different top level domains (such as "searchrank.com" or "searchrank.net") or where you have a .com and a country specific such as .co.uk.

SO WHAT?

faglork

[greeneagle]

Incredible,

I am trying to figure out just what they mean by "circular navigation", I am not sure. I would suspect that "Relative" would play in, but I don't want to see an issue with a subset of client links becoming problematic with an "A-B-C-A" natural and wholesime business relationship.

Ken

[incrediblehelp]

I got this from CranyDave via PM:

I think this more of an issue of a Google problem rather than a webmaster problem. I suspect they are having trouble within a site and are indexing a single page more than once when it has multiple links within a site pointing to it leading to a potential duplicate content problem. Their inability to rectify their problem leads to another webmaster "suggestion".

You might he be right. I think this is why Cutts also talks about having all links (being consistant) absolute or relative as to not confuse the indexing process. Pretty terrible is Google cant figure this out, LOL.

[greeneagle]

incredible,

The highest ranking page on my site is one that is linked 8x on top of my SEO and SEM pages as a PR6 on a PR4 Site. By definition, I don't see anything "circular" there.

Ken

[incrediblehelp]

I am sure most of you read David Utter's NY SES duplicate content write up last week which included a quote from Jake Baillie, TrueLocal's president:

Jake Baillie, TrueLocal's president, described the top six duplicate content mistakes:

Circular navigation - having different paths through a site should be avoided. Publishers should define a consistent way of addressing page content no matter what navigation path a user takes through a site.

[Tubby]

Circular,
I always understood that the spoked wheel aproach was a good model for larger sites.

The Hub might be Egg
and the spoke pointing to chicken,
the next spoke pointed to Bacon
the next spoke pointed to Chips
The next spoke pointed to Sausage
All these being around the rim of the wheel so to speak.

O.K. Do I have to circlular-navigate, to see what is for breakfast?

I hereby apologise (I thought that was funny)

[zbatia]

Faglork wrote:
Well I'll be damned if I let Google decide on how
I layout my navigation. This is ridiculous, sounds
like total hullyballoo to me. In short: I don't
believe it.

Completely agree.

I guess, circular navigation is the navigation not within one site. This term must be related to several web sites designed to fool search engines or incorrectly done. It's my wild guess. Anything else would be ridiculous (read above).