Are my menu systems hurting my rankings.

[mryang]

Hi,

It has been suggested that my menu system on the left hand side of my site may well be hurting my search engine positions by effectively spamming particular keywords..

Do you think this is the case and if so is there a suggested fix.

All help will be most appreciated.

DVD-and-media.com blank dvd recordable disc and case products for duplication and replication

[imvain2]

I don't know what others will say, but I don't see what you are doing as spamming.

Your side navigation links basically links to unique pages that have to do with the keyword in the link.

And I looked at your source code and noticed your top navigation menu is in the javascript file, so its not completely hidden, but not part of the main side either.

[spenland]

I ran into this a while ago with my internal site search. If you wrap the sidebar in a <noindex> tag then the search engines will skip over that section of the page.

[espmartin]

Originally Posted by spenland

I ran into this a while ago with my internal site search. If you wrap the sidebar in a <noindex> tag then the search engines will skip over that section of the page.

Wouldn't you worry about internal PR to your sub pages with this technique?

[bj]

If your shopping cart software permits it, use a source ordered layout in your template. That way you can put the center column first in the source.

Layout Gala: a collection of 40 CSS layouts based on the same markup and ready for download!

I know you can do this with CubeCart, and most likely with the newest version of ZenCart. There are a few others. Most of the older carts allow less freedom that way.

[Webnauts]

1. This web page contains 150 urls. Some Search Engines have problems with more than 100 urls on a page. For example, Google's Webmaster Guidelines state Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100)

2. I seriously consider 5.08% keyword density is harmful. And the word DVD is found in 62 times in your page, which results the above 5.08%. Here is a cool reading about this issue: » Avoiding Keyword Stuffing Ban

3. Did someone mention that Google cannot read the content of the noscript tag? If so, that is not true.

Good luck.

[mryang]

I thought the use of a noscript tag was to be used if someones browser doesnt support javascript and just good practice to put one in if you have a javascript menu... or am I wrong?

Many thanks for the help Webnauts - will make a few adjustments.

So having read your suggested article does the following genrally fit or should I have say three different pages (one for each search engine)

If I worked along the lines of -

In the title of a page try to average 6 - 7 words and mention my keyphrase once and make it in good english.
In the keywords tag try to have around 13 words but dont put the target keyword right at the front.
Make my keywords a little less prominent, get them in close to the start of sentences and titles etc, but not right at the front.
Have 600 - 700 words on a page.
- if you could expand on this or correct me it would be good.

Plus is there a nice little tool that I can use to run tests on my pages to analyse those percentages?

Do you think this has changed much since the article was written in 2006?

[ctabuk]

We try to help posters with potential problems and we do free of charge. So thanks Webnauts - as it was I who alerted him.

[milonic]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with including a noscript menu if you have a javascript menu on your site.

This has worked for us for years and I have seen Google mention that it's perfectly OK to use noscript menus if you want to use javascript menus.

Search engines are just happy to be given the chance to see the links that they otherwise wouldn't be able to read.

However, after looking at your site I see there are noscript tags at quite a few locations and this does look spammy and intended to fool the SE's. Might be an idea to remove them all as the home page contains many links already and because of that you don't actually need a noscript menu.

The best method is "JavaScript Menu" - "Noscript Menu" - "few links dotted around the page". Keep it simple and concise.

HTH,
Andy

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mryang

Do you think this has changed much since the article was written in 2006?

If you test your pages with our tool, you will get the answers to your question: SEO Workers Search Engine Optimization Analysis Tool

[nexusinternational]

After reading your comments, I visited your site and used some of your tools. Quite good.
I read in some articles that MSN allows up to 1024 characters in keywords. Some seo sites and experts recomend 750, some even 200. These are misleading.
Same is the case with description and title tags.
Then come the question of repetitions. Suppose you provide most of the services FREE and the word FREE appears at many places in a list of prices or services, will it not amount to spamming or repeating more than allowed number of times? Google says to write the pages as you would like your reader understands it and not for SE. Contradition?
I have too many keywords in the index page. I keep them to reflect what I have in my entire site, because the index page is a gateway to other pages. Should I change the title, description, keywords, etc for every page?

I am a newcomer. Please advise.
Thanks and regards

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by nexusinternational

I am a newcomer. Please advise.

I will advise you if you first answer my question:
How many keywords you need to use to target your page (NOT YOUR WEB SITE). Only main content and theme of a page. And that, excluding the keywords in your site's internal navigation (i.e the menu of your site)?

[nexusinternational]

Thanks for your offer.
I don't need too many keywords for individual pages. I feel about 250 to 500 characters can cover the individual pages. My present index page may need only about 200 characters.
I hope this will be enough to get your advice.

[Webnauts]

I think you do not need more that 4 keywords on a page. About the meta description tag you do not need more than 200 characters including spaces.

Is that what you wanted to know?

[nexusinternational]

Thanks a lot for your advice.
But 4 keywords cannot even cover the menu topics.
Here is something that may be interesting to you, and quite baffling to me.
Yesterday I analysed one of my page URLs that showed this result:

"Found 125 urls of which 62 are unique"
directory of directories - 15
The next was
kmnworldwide-com - 11
another URL4 times - 4

To correct the situation, I removed the last two and used your tool again. The result is:
Found 121 urls of which 59 are unique.
directoryofdirectories - 24

That is even after removing 2 URLs that showed 15, the result came down by ony 4, by showing the first one from 15 to 24 times against only one in my site.
If possible, let me know why this anomaly is there.

Thanks and regards

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by nexusinternational

Thanks a lot for your advice.
But 4 keywords cannot even cover the menu topics.
Here is something that may be interesting to you, and quite baffling to me.
Yesterday I analysed one of my page URLs that showed this result:

"Found 125 urls of which 62 are unique"
directory of directories - 15
The next was
kmnworldwide-com - 11
another URL4 times - 4

To correct the situation, I removed the last two and used your tool again. The result is:
Found 121 urls of which 59 are unique.
directoryofdirectories - 24

That is even after removing 2 URLs that showed 15, the result came down by ony 4, by showing the first one from 15 to 24 times against only one in my site.
If possible, let me know why this anomaly is there.

Thanks and regards

You should pick out the the main keywords found in your main content area, and not in the navigation. What is the page about? Not the site.

About the tool, you probably have same links more than once on the page, or you have a canonicalization problem causing duplicated content issues.

And here I must give up, as I am supporting you hijacking the thread. Start a new thread and I am sure there are members here who can help you out.