Deep Linking – Good or Bad

Deep linking for SEO is becoming more and more popular but does everyone understand it?

Deep linking is essentially when you create a link for information from one page of a website rather than a link directly to the home page of the website. A normal link will generally point to the homepage on a website where a deep link will usually point to a specific page within the website itself. These deep links are found to improve SEO (search engine optimization) for the overall website as they increase the ranking for the individual page and also for the website homepage. This increase in SEO allows for the web pages to be included higher in search engine results.

Deep links do not only benefit the website owner or online business owner.

Using deep linking helps to improve the ease that a user can navigate on the web. Newer internet users specifically find deep links a very easy way to get the information they want by getting directed to the exact page with the information they require. They often have no idea that it is a deep link they are using but that is irrelevant to them anyway.

Many times when people are searching on the web they have a specific query in mind and they type this into a search engine which will then provide them, hopefully, with a list of relevant website pages for their query. Often the home page is the only one listed on the web directory and when they click on that link they are directed to the website that they want but not the page that they needed. From that point they must then search further within the website home page to search out the information that they wanted to find in the first place.

Some businesses do not like using deep links.

As stated above normal links refer the user or visitor to the home page of the website directly and the user must then navigate to the page they want themselves. Many businesses prefer this form of link because then their website visitors are forced to view at least their home page before actually being able to locate the information they wanted. That means that they can use their advertising on the home page to hopefully have that visitor gain more than just the initial information from the website (whether they want it or not). Of course this can be incredibly frustrating to the user, as they must navigate two or more pages to find what they wanted in the first place. How often being forced to the home page actually improves a business regarding sales or services depends on the website and how they can track their information. How often a sale of service or products is lost because the user can not find the information is also not clear.

If a user could directly go to the page that they wanted for the service, product or information, this may in fact increase the profitability of the website owner or business owner relating to sales as the user is not put off by being run around on the website. This is speaking from my own experience only. However when you know what you are looking for, you put in reasonable terms for what you want but again you can not find it even though the information on the search page appears to be exactly what you want. You are instead directed to the website home page which may have another 100 possible options and often, for myself personally at this point I give up and move on to the next website. But that’s just me.

Deep Link Submission - SEO Benefits.

As a website owner or online business owner you should know that deep linking almost always also improves your websites attractiveness for search engine rankings. For the search engines it would seem that deep linking actually increases the overall attractiveness of the website and builds better SERP’s, search engine result pages. Therefore using deep links when you are able to would appear to have many benefits, not only to the consumer or visitor to your website for ease of use, but to you the website or business owner as your search engine rating improves.

So you are the owner of your website or online business and therefore it is up to you whether you consider deep linking SEO to be of benefit to you or not. If you are hoping to allow your customers to easily find the information they require and be able to purchase your services or products then perhaps you see deep links as a benefit to your business. Not to mention the improved SEO you can gain from the deep linking. However if you are more interested in having your customers visit your home page and browse over all of your information then perhaps you are not a fan of deep linking for SEO. Either way the choice is yours of course. Hopefully the information in this article gives you food for thought!