Circular links are links that lead to the same web page on which they are placed. An example found on many sites is the "Contact" or "About" menu items, which remain clickable after the user has navigated to the "Contact" or "About" page, respectively.
Why is it important to remove looping links?
The impact of circular links on SEO is extremely negative. This is a problem that slows down the movement of online stores and blogs to the first lines of search engine results. The main reasons why it is important to get rid of such URLs are:
- They mislead visitors. A user who has visited a site for the first time and spent enough time on it usually begins to get confused in navigation. He can also forget which pages he has already visited, where he is now and how he got here. If there are no circular links on the site, and when the user is on the "Shipping and payment" page, he sees that it is inactive, it becomes easier for him to navigate.
- Search engines don't like them. Crawlers traversing a looped link are forced to traverse it over and over again. For this, search engines punish the site by slowing down the growth of search engine positions. Eliminating circular links will help web spiders to correctly understand the structure of your site and not waste their crawling budget on crawling it.
- They do not bring visitors any benefit. Modern web projects are created in such a way that every element of them benefits the user. By clicking on a looping link, a visitor to a blog, portal or online store expects to see new content. But he gets to the same place where he was just now. As a result, he wastes time, and his impressions of using the site are not the best.
Pay attention! Looped URLs on the pages of blogs, portals and online stores slow down their promotion. But not as much as the slow speed of the sites. In order for the online resource to "fly" even during the hours of peak visits, we recommend renting a virtual server on CityHost. 50 GB for backups, SSD drives, full root access and 100% automation of management are a small part of the advantages of VDS CityHost.
How to find looping links
The optimal, inexpensive, but time-consuming method of finding looping URLs is manually:
- Check the bread crumbs. Often the last item in the navigation chain indicates the page the visitor is on. And just as often it remains clickable. Either the company's programmer, who must know how to eliminate circular links on the site, or the engine developer will help to solve such a problem.
- Check the list of categories. If blog or portal headings are indicated in the sidebar or footer of each web page, when moving to one or another category, a circular link often appears.
- Check the image in the article or news. Some of them may lead to the page on which they are published, thus creating a loop.
- Check the main menu. An example of cyclic URLs in the site menu was already given at the beginning of the article. After going to the Contact or Privacy Policy page, the menu item that leads to Contact or Privacy Policy, respectively, should become unclickable.
- Check the logo. It is convenient when, after clicking on the logo, you return to the home page of the online resource. But it is bad for promotion when the logo remains clickable on the main page.
You learned what circular links are and how to find them on the site. After removing looped links from web pages, as well as solving other technical optimization problems (for example, outgoing links or duplicate content), you will notice over time that promoting the site has become easier and faster.
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