undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Site wide footer links vs. single link for websites we design

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Site wide footer links vs. single link for websites we design

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
6
8
3.3k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • nbeske
    nbeske last edited by Oct 29, 2012, 5:29 PM

    I’ve been running a web design business for the past 5 years, 90% or more of the websites we build have a “web design by” link in the footer which links back to us using just our brand name or the full “web design by brand name” anchor text.

    I’m fully aware that site-wide footer links arent doing me much good in terms of SEO, but what Im curious to know is could they be hurting me? More specifically I’m wondering if I should do anything about the existing links or change my ways for all new projects, currently we’re still rolling them out with the site-wide footer links.

    I know that all other things being equal (1 link from 10 domains > 10 links from 1 domain) but is (1 link from 10 domains > 100 links from 10 domains)?

    I’ve got a lot of branded anchor text, which balances out my exact match and partial match keyword anchors from other link building nicely. Another thing to consider is that we host many of our clients which means there are quite a few on the same server with a shared IP.

    Should I?

    1.) Go back into as many of the sites as I can and remove the link from all pages except the home page or a decent PA sub page- keeping a single link from the domain.

    2.) Leave all the old stuff alone but start using the single link method on new sites.

    3.) Scratch the site credit and just insert an exact-match anchor link in the body of the home page and hide with with CSS like my top competitor seems to be doing quite successfully. (kidding of course.... but my competitor really is doing this.)

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • NeilD
      NeilD last edited by Feb 5, 2013, 1:47 PM Feb 5, 2013, 1:42 PM

      We have generated new business from links that we have on client sites linking back to us. The new client will call/email us saying "we see you did example.com website, which we like, would you mind quoting for a redesign our website".  Without that link we may never have got that new piece of business.

      We always ask the client if we can place on link on their website and they all say ok. We don't do this for purely for SEO. The only thing we have done previously is to include the link in the footer of every page on the client site, which we are now in the process of changing to being only the client home page.

      With that in mind, is the following ok to do?

      1. Place text/image link in footer of client home page

      2. Link to be "nofollow" which goes to specific page on our own website e.g. oursite.com/portfolio/clientname.php

      3. on oursite.com/portfolio/clientname.php page we link back to client's home page, again this would be a "nofollow"

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • AlanBleiweiss
        AlanBleiweiss last edited by Oct 29, 2012, 10:19 PM Oct 29, 2012, 10:19 PM

        Whether you have a site-wide link with exact match keywords, or even your design company's name, this is squarely in the "over-optimization" realm.  Created intentionally or not originally, it's now a best practice from an SEO perspective to eliminate site-wide links of any type pointing to a 3rd party site.

        Hiding them with CSS is not recommended, as this too is potentially going to be seen as an attempt to fool people or search engines.

        Purely from a "credit" perspective, if your clients are amenable to having a link to your site, it should either be on the home page footer, on the "About" page in the lower part of the content area, or another similar page.

        If you have not been penalized for site-wide links, be aware that regardless of your or other people's experience at this point, it's on the radar for being targeted for its negative implications.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • Unity
          Unity last edited by Oct 29, 2012, 10:19 PM Oct 29, 2012, 9:28 PM

          I've found it interesting reading this thread and seeing 'these' links from a different point of view. When auditing client sites I always recommend removing the web designers link from the footer (or at least from the homepage) because that link doesn't help my clients.

          If you are trying to get a link from the client it is going to be much better for you if the page is thematically in line with your website. You'd need to think creatively for this because I'm sure if they had web design ability they wouldn't need your services so similar content will be tricky! A couple of ideas: Perhaps your clients have a section/page of 'random' information where you can supply a paragraph of text about your website and add the link there. Perhaps they have a cool graphic or infographic that you created and they wouldn't mind adding a paragraph under it in smaller font? Perhaps you could do a contra deal, a page about you for 2 hours labor.

          But, to make a choice from your options a single homepage link is going to be more worthwhile than footer links and I wouldn't use the same anchor text for all of your links.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
          • kadesmith
            kadesmith @nbeske last edited by Oct 29, 2012, 6:09 PM Oct 29, 2012, 6:09 PM

            Must have been a really good TV show.

            There's not much in SEO that is more fun to watch than a competitor take a hit like that. Maybe achieving rank #1 for a competitive term.

            Nothing worse in SEO than taking a hit like that.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • nbeske
              nbeske @kadesmith last edited by Oct 29, 2012, 6:01 PM Oct 29, 2012, 6:01 PM

              I appreciate the insight. I've been consistently #2, though the #1 spot bounces around quite a bit- I've had at least 5 different competitors there at one time or another. My favorite though was when the long time double-hyphen .tv domain that ranked #1 got knocked down to page 4 after Panda.

              kadesmith 1 Reply Last reply Oct 29, 2012, 6:09 PM Reply Quote 0
              • Bryan_Loconto
                Bryan_Loconto last edited by Oct 29, 2012, 5:39 PM Oct 29, 2012, 5:39 PM

                Having site wide links like that can look like they may have been paid for.

                "I know that all other things being equal (1 link from 10 domains > 10 links from 1 domain) but is (1 link from 10 domains > 100 links from 10 domains)?"

                1 link that gets relevant traffic to your site is worth more than 100 links that are not relevant to your site. It's not about how many links it's all about what type of content created that link. In other words building a natural linking profile is not link building, it's creating real content and sharing it with the right people who will help that article get real natural links.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • kadesmith
                  kadesmith last edited by Oct 29, 2012, 5:36 PM Oct 29, 2012, 5:36 PM

                  #3 is the most obvious choice to implement.

                  All joking aside, I use to run a web design business and the majority of links I had were footer, site wide links.  I still have my site up even though I do very little anymore and haven't focused on any SEO for the site in a long, long time.  After the Penguin/Panda hype, I jumped from page 2 to top 3 consistently for keywords I was once targeting.

                  I don't know if it was just that my competitors had spammy link profiles or what, but for me in this case site wide footer links seemed to be all I needed.  Take it for what you will.

                  nbeske 1 Reply Last reply Oct 29, 2012, 6:01 PM Reply Quote 1
                  • 1 / 1
                  1 out of 8
                  • First post
                    1/8
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • BeckyKey

                    Sitewide Footer Links & Sister Sites

                    Hi We have a number of sister sites across Europe - the sites are under a different domain name, but have a very similar layout & product offering. When looking at duplicate content, they are flagged as being a moderate risk with similar content - we don't duplicate product content, however it's similar. We also link to them in the footer in a drop down - not anchor text links - however this is still seen by Google. I don't think I'll be able to remove links to our sister companies, but should I implement the Href lang if the sites are slightly different? Or find another way to link to them? Here's an example http://www.key.co.uk/en/key & https://www.manutan.fr/fr/maf

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 27, 2015, 2:20 PM | BeckyKey
                    0
                  • Your_Workshop

                    Nofollow Outbound Links on Listings from Travel Sites?

                    We oversee a variety of regional, county, and town level tourism websites, each with hundreds (or even thousands) of places/businesses represented with individual pages. Each page contains a link back to the place's main web presence if available. My fear is that a large portion of these linked to sites are low quality, and may even be spammy. With our budgets there is no way to sort through them and assign nofollows as needed. There are also a number of broken links that we try to stay on top of but at times some slip through due to the sheer number of pages. I am thinking about adding a nofollow to these outbound links across the board. This would not be all outbound links on the website, just the website links on the listing pages. I would love to know peoples thoughts on this.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 19, 2015, 8:08 PM | Your_Workshop
                    0
                  • blackrino

                    Credit Links on Client Websites

                    I know there have been several people who have asked this but a lot of them were back in 2012 before many of the google changes. My question is the same though. With all the changes with Google's algorithm. Is it okay to put your link on the bottom of your clients website. Like Web Design by, etc. Part of the reason is to drive traffic but also if someone is actually interested who designed the website, they will click it. But now reading about how bad links can hurt you tremendously, it makes me second guess if this is ok. My gut feeling says, no.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 10, 2014, 1:47 PM | blackrino
                    0
                  • Kingalan1

                    Effect of Removing Footer Links In all Pages Except Home Page

                    Dear MOZ Community: In an effort to improve the user interface of our business website (a New York CIty commercial real estate agency) my designer eliminated a standardized footer containing links to about 20 pages. The new design maintains this footer on the home page, but all other pages (about 600 eliminate the footer). The new design does a very good job eliminating non essential items. Most of the changes remove or reduce the size of unnecessary design elements. The footer removal is the only change really effect the link structure. The new design is not launched yet. Hoping to receive some good advice from the MOZ community before proceeding My concern is that removing these links could have an adverse or unpredictable effect on ranking. Last Summer we launched a completely redesigned version of the site and our ranking collapsed for 3 months. However unlike the previous upgrade this modifications does not URL names, tags, text or any major element. Only major change is the footer removal. Some of the footer pages provide good (not critical) info for visitors. Note the footer will still appear on the home page but will be removed on the interior pages. Are we risking any detrimental ranking effect by removing this footer? Can we compensate by adding text links to these pages if the links from the footer are removed? Seems irregular to have a home page footer but no footer on the other pages. Are we inviting any downgrade, penalty, adverse SEO effect by implementing this? I very much like the new design but do not want to risk a fall in rank and traffic. Thanks for your input!!!
                    Alan

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 10, 2014, 1:22 PM | Kingalan1
                    0
                  • 90miLLA

                    Using both dofollow & nofollow links within the same blog site (but different post).

                    Hi all, I have been actively pursuing bloggers for my site in order to build page rank. My website sells women undergarments that are more on the exotic end. I noticed a large amount of prospective bloggers demand product samples. As already confirm, bloggers that are given "free" samples should use a rel=no follow attribute in their links. Unfortunately this does not build my page rank or transfer links juice. My question is this: is it advisable for them to also blog additional posts and include dofollow links? The idea is for the blogger to use a nofollow when posting about the sample and a regular link for a secondary post at a later time. What are you thoughts concerning this matter?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 20, 2013, 5:22 PM | 90miLLA
                    0
                  • NaescentAdam

                    Link Research Tools - Detox Links

                    Hi, I was doing a little research on my link profile and came across a tool called "LinkRessearchTools.com". I bought a subscription and tried them out. Doing the report they advised a low risk but identified 78 Very High Risk to Deadly (are they venomous?) links, around 5% of total and advised removing them. They also advised of many suspicious and low risk links but these seem to be because they have no knowledge of them so default to a negative it seems. So before I do anything rash and start removing my Deadly links, I was wondering if anyone had a). used them and recommend them b). recommend detoxing removing the deadly links c). would there be any cases in which so called Deadly links being removed cause more problems than solve. Such as maintaining a normal looking profile as everyone would be likely to have bad links etc... (although my thinking may be out on that one...). What do you think? Adam

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 3, 2013, 12:42 AM | NaescentAdam
                    0
                  • underscorelive

                    Outbound link to PDF vs outbound link to page

                    If you're trying to create a site which is an information hub, obviously linking out to authoritative sites is a good idea. However, does linking to a PDF have the same effect? e.g Linking to Google's SEO starter guide PDF, as opposed to linking to a google article on SEO. Thanks!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 1, 2013, 10:01 AM | underscorelive
                    0
                  • broca77711

                    How to properly link network of microsites and main sites?

                    Law firm has a main brand site (lawfirmname.com) with lots of content focusing on personal injury related areas of law.  They also do other unrelated areas of law such as bankruptcy and divorce.  They have a separate website for bankruptcy and a separate one for divorce.  These websites have good quality content, a backlinking campaign, and are fairly large websites, with landing pages for different cities. They also have created local microsites in the areas of bankruptcy and divorce that target specific smaller cities that the main bankruptcy site and divorce site do not target well.  These microsites have a good deal of original content and the content is mostly specific to the city the website is about, and virtually no backlinks. There are about 15 microsites for cities in bankruptcy and 10 in divorce and they rank pretty well for these city specific local searches. None of these sites are linked at all, and all 28 of the sites are under the same hosting account (all are subdomains of root domain of hosting account).  Question, should I link these sites together at all and if so how?  I considered making a simple and general page on the lawfirmname.com personal injury site for bankruptcy and divorce (lawfirmname.com/bankruptcy and lawfirmname.com/divorce) and then saying on the page something to the effect of "for more information on bankruptcy go to our main bankruptcy site at ....." and putting the link to the main bankruptcy site.  Same for divorce.  This way users can go to lawfirmname.com site and find Other Practice Areas, go to bankruptcy page, and link to main bankruptcy site.  Is this the best way to link to these two main sites for bankruptcy and divorce or should I be linking upward? Secondly, should I link the city specific microsites to any of the other sites or leave them completely separate?  Thirdly, should all of these sites be hosted on the same account or is this something that should be changed?  I was considering not linking the city specific sites at all, but if I did this I didn't know if I should create different hosting accounts for them (which could be expensive).  The sites work well in themselves without being linked, but wanted to try to network them in some way if possible without getting penalized or causing any issues with the search engines.  Any help would be appreciated on how to network and host all of these websites.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 23, 2012, 2:51 PM | broca77711
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.