I think webmasters link to their current page because they think it will improve they’re on-page SEO. I can understand when a website uses a universal navigation bar with a “home” link to the index page, but other than that, I agree that they are annoying.
P.S. I’m so glad I found this site! I am an aspiring designer and it’s exactly what I was looking for!
Already I read user experience article… now this one also good… because I know the importance of the navigation in designer point of view. But this is good for user point of view. So this will help for me.
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frank grimes
If the intent to not allow links to the current is to identify the current position within the site, okay. The tab example works fine.
If a site is more complex, as suggested by the author, life is more complicated. A page navigated to from a drop-down menu is a different matter.
A site with a series of dropdown menus—either single- or multi-level—don’t benefit from the logic of page identification. Content, for me, always dictates the structure. If I can identify on the page the location within the site with breadcrumbs or page title (in the url or browser bar or within the page text), I will.
It’s my hope the viewer of my site is keen enough to understand where he or she is or, more importantly, how to find what he or she is looking for without visual cues in the navigation, but I also understand this is not always the case.
As I develop sites for my customers, I offer my advice and my insistence on standards, but ultimately, they pay me so they have the final say. Too often this results in navigation replete with redundant links, inconsistent arrangement or any such horrors.
My thought is if there is an active link to the page I’m on, so be it. It’s more important to me to have a consistency to the navigation. It’s been my experience that users find this more helpful.
94 Reader Comments
Back to the ArticleThierry Koblentz
I wrote a script awhile ago to take care of this:
“linktext”:http://www.tjkdesign.com/articles/navigation_links_and_current_location.asp
Jason McElwaine
I think webmasters link to their current page because they think it will improve they’re on-page SEO. I can understand when a website uses a universal navigation bar with a “home” link to the index page, but other than that, I agree that they are annoying.
P.S. I’m so glad I found this site! I am an aspiring designer and it’s exactly what I was looking for!
krishnamoorthy manickam
Already I read user experience article… now this one also good… because I know the importance of the navigation in designer point of view. But this is good for user point of view. So this will help for me.
Thanks…
frank grimes
If the intent to not allow links to the current is to identify the current position within the site, okay. The tab example works fine.
If a site is more complex, as suggested by the author, life is more complicated. A page navigated to from a drop-down menu is a different matter.
A site with a series of dropdown menus—either single- or multi-level—don’t benefit from the logic of page identification. Content, for me, always dictates the structure. If I can identify on the page the location within the site with breadcrumbs or page title (in the url or browser bar or within the page text), I will.
It’s my hope the viewer of my site is keen enough to understand where he or she is or, more importantly, how to find what he or she is looking for without visual cues in the navigation, but I also understand this is not always the case.
As I develop sites for my customers, I offer my advice and my insistence on standards, but ultimately, they pay me so they have the final say. Too often this results in navigation replete with redundant links, inconsistent arrangement or any such horrors.
My thought is if there is an active link to the page I’m on, so be it. It’s more important to me to have a consistency to the navigation. It’s been my experience that users find this more helpful.