Volume of Links on Web Pages
Almost every Web page in existence has one or more links or at least some way for Web users to navigate from a Web page. Some Web pages contain only few links while others contain more than thousand links on a single Web page.
How many links a Web page should or could contain without hurting overall performance is probably a very much discussed topic and the answer to that question depends on many factors such as Web site structure, theme, purpose, history and experience.
The table below shows data obtained from six samples on the number of links found.
| Volume of Links | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Observed Element | Observed Category | % Found | Average | Min | Max | Median | 80 Percentile Range | |
| a | Tech News | 100.00 | 298.36 | 25.00 | 759.00 | 134.00 | 119.00 - 525.00 | |
| a | Tech News and Blogs | 100.00 | 204.52 | 8.00 | 762.00 | 204.00 | 48.80 - 409.00 | |
| a | Web 2.0 Oriented | 100.00 | 89.24 | 1.00 | 1,052.00 | 176.00 | 12.00 - 217.60 | |
| a | Web Marketing | 100.00 | 59.89 | 1.00 | 498.00 | 72.00 | 10.00 - 127.00 | |
| a | Small Business | 100.00 | 91.99 | 1.00 | 511.00 | 510.00 | 16.20 - 196.00 | |
| a | Home Business | 100.00 | 63.70 | 1.00 | 302.00 | 35.00 | 9.00 - 141.00 | |
The second table shows the same data on volume of links, but this time for grouped category, general Web sites and Web sites having prominent search engine positions with major search engines.
| Volume of Links | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Observed Element | Observed Category | % Found | Average | Min | Max | Median | 80 Percentile Range | |
| a | General | 99.93 | 137.73 | 1.00 | 1,052.00 | 140.17 | 39.23 - 275.10 | |
| a | Prominent SE Position | 99.74 | 84.93 | 1.00 | 839.00 | 131.57 | 13.63 - 193.79 | |
The third table shows the number of unique external links for general and SE category. Web sites having prominent search engine positions contain much fewer external unique links.
| Volume of Unique External Links | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Observed Element | Observed Category | % Found | Average | Min | Max | Median | 80 Percentile Range | |
| Links Unique External | General | 91.16 | 28.74 | 1.00 | 458.00 | 18.50 | 3.17 - 62.42 | |
| Links Unique External | Prominent SE Position | 89.47 | 18.05 | 1.00 | 455.00 | 24.14 | 1.36 - 45.86 | |
Looking at the above tables it is tempting to say that keeping the number of links on a Web page below 100 and external links below 20 might be a good idea, but this all depends on many other factors. Anyhow, the data table and chart shows interesting results.
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