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.
Should I link to competitors?
-
Hi, I was wondering: we work in an extremely competitive market. There are 6 companies, offering the same service in my country: price comparison in a niche market. The competitors have hundreds of different websites, using iframe-techniques.
Would it be helpful for me to link to those 6 competitors, in a piece of content about our company strategies, USP's and overview of the market?
From a transparency point of view, i would prefer telling my visitors there are other competitors, which are undoubtedly performing very well, but we perform better on several aspects of the price comparison.
On the other hand, my competitors benefit from the backlinks as well. Is my gain bigger than the gain of my competitors do you think? Has anyone tested this once?
-
what does do not link site-wide means?? You mean i can only link to competitors on my home page?
-
Hi Bart
Here is a nice Whiteboard Friday on "Is External Linking Good For SEO? - Whiteboard Friday".. There is a good discussion on comments regd external links to competitors.
Hope this would helps.
-
Thanks for the answer. You wrote 'From my experience, this is the best practice'. What were your (statistical) findings from linking vs. not linking to competitors? Did it have a positive effect on your website ranking or metrics?
-
You can have 1-2 external links to your competitors, however, use only the official name of their websites as anchor text. Do not link site-wide, only from the homepage.
From my experience, this is the best practice.
It is up to you if you want to use dofollow or nofollow in the href.
-
Yes, you can link to them. It's not like you would be linking to them on a daily basis. As far as I know Google loves it when you link to relevant sites (outgoing links are valuable too). And what's better than competitors in terms of relevancy. And if they notice that you are linking to them, you could be making good connections with them and who knows, they might do the same. Everyone wins in long term.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Sub-domain with spammy content and links: Any impact on main website rankings?
Hi all, One of our sub-domains is forums. Our users will be discussing about our product and many related things. But some of the users in forum are adding a lot of spammy content everyday. I just wonder whether this scenario is ruining our ranking efforts of main website? A sub domain with spammy content really kills the ranking of main website? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | Nov 8, 2017, 10:50 PM | vtmoz0 -
Should I create a menu link for sitemap?
Hi guys, I am new to SEO and I have a question for you guys. We created a sitemap for our website. I was thinking of creating a sitemap link on our homepage. Do you think it's a good idea? Would this help us in terms of ranking improvements? Or would help with anything at all? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | Feb 15, 2017, 9:21 AM | ahmetkul0 -
Has anyone used Capterra and will I get penalized for paid links?
Hello - I'm contemplating buying a directory listing on the software promotion website http://www.capterra.com/ . It's a site that gets quite a bit of traffic for people searching for software products and I was interested in promoting my software product there, but I don't want to ruin our very good standing with Google at this time if Google deems Capterra as selling paid links. I'm not interested in this for links but instead as a good source of referral traffic for my software site. If anyone has used Capterra or has advice on whether Capterra might injure my SERP rankings, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Jeff
Algorithm Updates | Jul 31, 2014, 4:13 PM | DenverDude0070 -
Dofollow Links on Press Releases: Good or Bad?
Hello, I know that Google says that you are supposed to make anchored text links nofollow on press releases, but what about just putting the site url itself (example.com) and making it dofollow? Is that okay?
Algorithm Updates | Sep 5, 2013, 6:46 PM | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Agency footer link, do we keep it ?
Hello ! I was wondering if it's still a good idea to let a do-follow link on the bottom of agency released websites. Because they obvisouly come from different websites with no link with a web marketing agency. Do we have to keep them in the footer in no-follow ? If we do so, how to get some link juice from the different websites ? It sounds a bit stupid but one of my partners went from PR7 to PR5 recently. I guess Penguin 2.0 did not like all its links from its customers' website. Tks a lot !
Algorithm Updates | Jul 24, 2013, 12:34 PM | AymanH0 -
Guest Blog Post or Article Content Should be Do-Follow or No-Follow Link ? Help Plz !
Many SEO writers and blogs after Google Matt Cutt said, You should not allow no-follow link in Guest Post. What should we do. ? I am allowing Guest post - what they ask in return a do-follow link to their site or blog. other articles or post i wrote about inspiration collected from different source or single portfolio site - i credit them(as blogger - we should respect them). What i am doing right or wrong ? Please advise and help me on this ! http://searchengineland.com/google-guest-blogging-for-links-you-better-nofollow-those-links-166218
Algorithm Updates | Aug 1, 2013, 2:40 AM | Esaky0 -
Excessive internal links. Should I remove the footer links?
Hi guys, I have an ecommerce site selling eco-friendly items online. I ran some on-page optimisation reports from SEOMoz PRO and discovered that I have at least 120 internal links per page. 32 of these are in the footer, designed in part to aid user navigation but perhaps also to have a positive impact on SERPs and SEO in general for the ecommerce site. Will removing these links be beneficial to my search engine rankings, as I will have less than 100 internal links per page? Or is it a major change which may be dangerous for my site rankings? Please help as I'm not sure about this! I've attached an image of the footer links below. I won't be removing the Facebook/Twitter links, just the 3 columns on the left. Thank you, Pravin MAvLe.jpg
Algorithm Updates | Oct 26, 2012, 5:09 AM | goforgreen0 -
How do you block incoming links to your site?
With the new update to google focusing on link spam and multiple anchor text ? If you have incoming links that you would like to block or make no follow?
Algorithm Updates | May 2, 2012, 5:33 PM | HelpingHandNetwork1