Google’s Mueller Explains First Link Priority & Link Obfuscation

Google Search Advocate John Mueller recently weighed in on a Reddit discussion where a site owner considered hiding a homepage button from Google to force a different link to be counted. The goal was to make a more precisely worded link further down the page take priority. Mueller’s response was clear: the plan is likely overthinking the issue.

The conversation began in the r/bigseo subreddit. A user described a homepage that links to the same services page twice. The first link is a prominent ‘Services’ button near the top, while the second appears in an FAQ section with wording the site owner prefers. To make the FAQ link “win,” they planned to turn the button into a non-link element. It would still function when clicked, but the page’s code would no longer identify it as a link. That would leave the FAQ link as the only standard anchor pointing to the services page.

The user wanted to know if this change would make any visible difference in search performance.

Mueller replied directly:

“I suspect you’re overthinking it, Google has practice dealing with lots of websites so I wouldn’t expect you to see any visible change there. That said, if you wanted to experiment with this, I’d suggest doing something more along the lines of using CSS / JS to position things on the page, regardless of where the link is placed in the HTML. That reduces the potential negative side-effects of ‘breaking’ the HTML (turning links into buttons, or similar, ugh) while still letting you vary the position in your page’s HTML code.”

Mueller did not confirm whether the first link always wins. Instead, his answer focused on the likely scale of the impact and the risks involved in chasing such a small potential gain.

The concept behind the plan is known as first link priority. This idea suggests that when one page contains two links to the same destination, Google reads the anchor text of the first link and ignores the second. If this were an absolute rule, the button would claim all value, and the FAQ link would be wasted.

Google has never officially defined a strict first link priority policy. SEJ’s ranking factors chapter on the topic traces the concept back to a 2008 post by Rand Fishkin and finds no solid evidence to treat it as a reliable rule. Mueller has previously stated that Google has not defined this behavior, and any assumptions about how it works today may not hold tomorrow.

Despite this uncertainty, the idea persists. SEJ’s Roger Montti covered a similar concern about anchor text dilution last April.

From a technical standpoint, Google can execute JavaScript, but that does not mean it treats every clickable element as a link. A standard link uses an `` tag with an `href` attribute, which tells Google where the link leads. An address stored in another element and triggered by a script is not a link in Google’s eyes.

Google’s links best practices documentation states that Google can generally only crawl a link when it is an `` element with an `href` attribute. It cannot reliably extract URLs from elements that behave like links through script events.

So, the button in this scenario would not become a hidden link. It would stop being a link entirely. The FAQ link would remain unaffected, and visitors clicking the button would still reach the services page.

Mueller’s alternative suggestion was simpler. Keep the button as a normal link. Move the FAQ link earlier in the page’s HTML code so it appears first in the document order. Then use CSS to position everything visually where visitors expect it. The code order changes, the page looks the same, and both links remain functional.

Google’s Martin Splitt made a similar point in an SEO 101 session years ago. He advised using proper anchor markup and avoiding buttons and click handlers for navigation.

This topic matters because internal anchor text has long been an SEO lever. That is why a plan like this seems reasonable on the surface. But the trade-off is significant. Your homepage’s main button stops being a link, and Mueller would not expect you to see any measurable result from the change.

First link priority has remained unconfirmed since at least 2008. People have been running tests to pin it down for that long, and one Reddit reply will not end the debate. Anyone who continues to test it now has Mueller’s guidance to work from. His advice is to change the order in the code without removing a link. He gave no indication that doing so would produce a visible difference.