[eluser]boltsabre[/eluser]
Quote:irrelevant if you’re routing ;-)
It certainly is!
Quote:Also pick a name, other than “home”, for the first item in your main menu, again because the engines will downgrade your rank if it doesn’t relate to page content.
50% true... Using "home" for the anchor text for the nav link to your homepage isn't going to hurt you in the slightest (mine is actually "home sweet home")!
However... if you can use something else that actually related to your homepage, then this can be better. You can use your brandname or brandname.com, which will help in the ranking for your brandname, but seriously, who types into google "pepsi" or "ford" or "quicksilver"? 99% of users will just type brandname.com direct into the url bar of their browser.
If your homepage/site is about... discount surfboards, your "homepage" link could be "cheap boards", "cheap surfboards", "discount boards", or something similar. But you then run the risk of confusing your user... most sites have their top logo as a link to their homepage, if they see a link "discount boards" and click it and just get the homepage they can (and do) get frustrated about it.
Anyway, if your top logo is a link to your homepage then due to googles "first link is the one that is counted" policy, it doesn't matter what you call your nav link, google wont pass the anchor text.
Complex subject with lots of grey areas... and at the end of the day it's all "secondary" nature stuff, internal link/anchor text doesn't pass nearly as much weight as an external link with the same anchor text.
