"sculpting" PR - good or bad idea?

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

If Im trying to improve a site's internal link structure for SEO-purposes I thought it'd be a good idea to work it like this (in this particular order):

1. Can I change this link without having any negative/unwanted effect on humans navigating this website?

2. If it does not then can I add/remove the link to send more PR to the pages I want to rank badly

e.g. the webmaster was linking to a page in the main navigation, in the content (in a very clearly structured way, with good usability)...but was also linking to it on the right side of the page & in the footer (his services section).

I thought it'd be a good idea to remove the link on the right side and in the footer (changed the footer completely), because anybody would have seen the fat services link in the main navigation and anyone who would have bothered to scan the content would have seen that link to the services page, right away (the content section of the homepage had great usability, I think).

So, I thought by removing those 2 links less PR would be wasted and more would flow to the pages I'd want to rank (you guys will have to take my word that in this case the services page didnt have much SEO potential ;)).

So basically, I'm thinking: if it doesnt have any negative/unwanted effect on humans, why not link to the pages I really want to rank more frequently?

(I assume if it was done too aggressively it might make Google suspicious...but then again if one does it too aggressively, its probably not possible to make sure that it doesnt have any negative effect on usability, either)

How do you guys think about c hanneling /sculpting PR?

[AussieWebmaster]

I would consider using no follow tags around links if you want to stop flow of juice to certain links

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

I've considered doing that..just as using links to the more important pages in the content that have the same font-style/color (no underline) as the text...but was told by a couple other SEOs I know, that it wasn't a good idea and no good reason to risk it..

..and I think I sort of agree with it (esp. as it isn't my own website), and will avoid doing anything like that even though it is tempting hehe ;).

I assume you dont think there's much of a problem with the other things I suggest (linking to the most important pages more frequently and removing unnecessary links to other pages...if it really doesn't seem to have any unwanted/negative effects on humans navigating the site)?

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

I just came across an interesting post by DaveN on this:

http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/nofollow-sculpting-my-take.html

I like his analogy..that building more links might be a more effective way to sepdn one's time than worrying too much about internal linking (unless it's messed up of course).

However, I think another good reason not to use nofollow (or links with the same font-style/color/etc. as the text) is that it might put you on an SE's radar. By doing something like that (I think) you're basically saying "I'm doing SEO (and more than just the average webmaster)"...and think it's generally a great idea to make a website that looks as if it could have "happened" without an SEO behind it.

Actually, I've wondered if search engines might use different algorithms for pages that fall into "clearly optimized for search results" and pages that fall into the "doesn't look like SEO" category...those that are optimized will rank higher than they "deserve" to, whereas those that are not optimized at all will rank lower than they "deserve" to.....I guess theyre not doing that at the moment, but it reminds me of using too many keywords in anchor text and being "too optimized"...and well that it's generally a good idea to optimize the heck out of a site, but still looking like it's one of the sites which just "happens" to have these things right (if you got 1,000,000's of sites some will be perfectly optimized for the search results just by chance)