Google Search Attorney John Mueller responded to the strategy of hiding the homepage button from Google in the hope that a better-worded link down the page would be counted. He suspects that the person behind it is overthinking it.
The r/bigseo thread started with a question about a homepage linking to the same services page twice. The first link is the ‘Services’ button near the top, while the second sits further down in the FAQ, written the way one wants Google to read it.
In order to get a second link to “win,” they plan to make the most prominent button stop being a link. It will still work if someone clicks on it, but the page code will no longer call it a link. That leaves the FAQ link as the only common link on the page that points to the services page.
They asked the thread if it would make a noticeable difference.
What Mueller said
The answer comes from Mueller:
“I suspect you’re thinking too much about it, Google is used to dealing with a lot of websites so I wouldn’t expect you to see a noticeable change there.
That said, if you want to try this, I would suggest you do something more by using CSS / JS to place things on the page, regardless of where the link is placed in the HTML. That minimizes the potential side effects of “breaking” HTML (turning links into buttons, or similar, ugh) while allowing you to change the location in your page’s HTML code.”
He didn’t say that the first link wins. His answer is about the magnitude of the effect and the cost of chasing it.
Why One Would Try This
The idea behind the plan is called the first link. It says that when one page links to another twice, Google reads the words in the first link and ignores the second. If that were true, the button would win and the FAQ link would be wasted.
Google has never clearly defined “first link priority.” SEJ’s chapter on first link importance traces the idea to Rand Fishkin’s 2008 post and finds no support for treating it as a rule to build upon. Mueller has previously said that Google doesn’t define behavior, and that anything anyone finds out about how Google is doing today doesn’t necessarily mean how it will work tomorrow.
The idea keeps circling though. SEJ’s Roger Montti covered similar concerns about anchor text dilution last April.
What Google sees
Google may use JavaScript, but that doesn’t mean it treats every click as a link. A well-written link puts the address inside the link tag, which tells Google where it goes. An address parked in another object for scripting is not written as a link at all.
Google’s links to best practice articles say that Google can only crawl a link if it is feature with href attribute, and that it cannot reliably extract URLs from objects that behave like links through text events.
So the button doesn’t turn into a link with its hidden names; it ceases to be a link. The FAQ link is untouched, and visitors who click the button end up in the same place.
What Mueller suggested Instead
His proposal leaves the button alone. You move the FAQ link ahead of time in the page code so it comes first, then use CSS to put everything back where visitors expect it. The order of the code changes, the page looks the same, and both links remain links.
Google’s Martin Splitt made a similar point in an SEO 101 session years ago, where his guidance was to use the right anchor tag and avoid buttons and click handlers like navigation.
Why This Matters
Internal anchor text has been an SEO benchmark for years. That’s why a plan like this makes sense. It also means that the main button on your homepage stops being a link, and Mueller wouldn’t expect you to see anything about it.
Looking Forward
The importance of the first link has been unproven since at least 2008, almost as long as people have been running tests to put it down, and one Reddit answer won’t cut it. Anyone who keeps testing it now has Mueller’s version to work with, changing the order of the code without removing the link. He gave no indication that changing that order would produce a noticeable difference.
