Navigation Removal Trick Impacting Google Rankings Algorithm?

An SEO, I believe his name is Alexander, asked John Mueller of Google in this morning’s video hangout if Google is aware of a trick some sites are using to combat any negative impact from the August 1st medic update. John was unaware and confused by the strategy, saying he would only see a downside to removing a site’s navigation in terms of how it would hurt the site’s ranking in Google.

The question came up 31 seconds into the video. He basically asked if Google was aware of this navigation removal trick some SEOs were using. It sounds to me that they are doing this to preserve PageRank and link weight on specific pages. In fact, he said the only way to navigate some of these sites is to click from page to page, one at a time, creating a horrible user experience.

I never heard of this either – but it doesn’t mean this is not floating around.

John said he will investigate this if he would share more details but based on everything he knows, removing navigation, even if you have an XML Sitemap can cause huge issues for ranking in Google.