Google’s John Mueller advises against linking every page on a website from the home page, suggesting it can hinder Googlebot’s ability to comprehend a site’s architecture. This topic arose during a recent Google Webmaster Central office-hours session, where a site owner questioned whether linking to every page from the home page dilutes the site’s focus.
Mueller responded that such a practice can indeed dilute focus, as it may prevent Google from accurately understanding the website’s structure. This is particularly relevant for larger websites, whereas for smaller websites, linking to all pages from the home page is more common.
For larger sites, linking every page from the home page complicates Google’s task of discerning the semantic structure. This means Google may struggle to identify which pages are more important or how categories are organized within the site.
Google has previously recommended linking important pages from the home page to give them more prominence in search results. However, this does not mean all pages should be equally linked from the home page.
When Google understands a site’s architecture, it can rank the pages in search results in a way that makes sense for users.
Mueller explained:
“It does dilute [the focus] a little bit in the sense that we don’t understand the structure of your website that cleanly in such cases. With smaller websites, it’s natural to link across all pages if you have, say, 10-20 pages. But with larger websites, linking to all pages from the home page obscures the semantic structure. This diminishes our understanding of categories, higher-level and lower-level pages, and their connections within a larger site.
In general, maintaining a clear structure in your links is beneficial for both users and Googlebot. This helps better understand the webpage framework rather than being overwhelmed by 200 or 300 different clickable links. So, that would be my recommendation.
It’s not about witnessing a drastic impact on search performance, but clearer understanding of lower-level pages can be achieved if it’s evident that a product belongs to a specific category within a higher-level framework.”
