Footer link back to developers domain
-
I have read a lot about where it is suggested to either not put an attribute link in the footer of a clients site or to no follow it. But I have a little bit different take on the question.
How does this work on a large scale? Are these manual penalties, or are they automatic? By large scale, I am talking about big cms programs such as Wordpress, Joomla, and the likes of those. They all have links back to their site in the footer of the default templates. Is this bad? Does it not rally matter on the scale of companies such as this?
-
There are definitely sites that are (to quote George Orwell) "more equal than others".
Wordpress would be hooped is those types of links were catalysts to a penalty ... at least in a level world. I dont' think anyone could say with 100% certainty that it won't bite you in the butt so nofollow is probably the route to go.
-
I just wrote an answer to the post above, but the jist is not that it is an attribution link like so and so developed this site. It is more a default theme for a major software package. It might get 100k natural links in a month from having it in the footer. I would venture to guess it gets around 10k a month now from it.
-
I understand the thinking of that, but at the same time I am asking a question not about putting a link back on my clients pages. It has to do with the default theme of a major cms package. Something that might get 100k or so backlinks in a or two from people installing it.
After the whole pinterest thing, I think it is pretty obvious that Google has sites that they treat differently because of what ever reason. This might very well be one of those sites. Or I could be totally off base on this line of thinking.
I am just trying to figure out if a major default theme is going to suffer from not using a no-follow, or if it really does not matter per se.
-
Hi Lesley
It would be good to hear from others on this, but I think that footer backlinks like these to the developer's site are largely ignored by Google these days in terms of passing SEO value.
For many web developers, adding a link like that has been a sort of credit to them, rather like have a credit at the end of a film. It's what web developers have done and many still do. I haven't heard of any web developer's sites being slapped by having multiple backlinks like this, so maybe Google does see it that way.
Peter
-
As an SEo I never do it but that's more to the question, do I want to say, "Hey Google, here's a site that's been SEO'd." From the perspective of a web designer simply taking credit for their work, I've only seen it cause issues recently if they're followed links and anchor heavy. From my experience, branded links seem to work fine but mix it up.
That said, who knows what's coming. If you want to play it safe - nofollow is the way to go. But then, you probably knew that.
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
-
Ability to Transition Completed Wordpress Website to New Coder/Developer
We have worked with the same Wordpress developer since 2012. They recently redesigned our Wordpress site. We purchased a real estate theme and they performed major modifications to it. The project took 8 months. There are many customized widgets and multiple plugins. We hired a new SEO. The SEO is very comfortable coding. The SEO performed certain modifications and the code broke. The original developer stepped in and and helped restore the code. The SEO stated that the site should not be so delicate; that too many plugins and widgets are used making it inherently unstable. The original developer is claiming that the SEO did not follow best practices (they did not use a dev server to test). For a non technical business owner this is very disturbing. We finally agreed that the new SEO would make changes on a dev server and the original developer will check these changes to ensure they do not break the code. My question is, shouldn't a Wordpress site be simple enough to hand over to a decent coder with little risk of breaking the code? Are there any standards regarding the hand over of a site? I am comfortable with my developers, but what if they change professions or close their company? How would I transition the site? There must be standards and protocols that allow a third party, such as an SEO to change code without causing havoc. Any one have some insight?
Web Design | | Kingalan11 -
Internal Linking: What is the best practice for pages not included in Nav bar?
I never quite understood why internal linking was such a big deal for SEO, but now I'm having second thoughts and perhaps understanding it more. I always thought since most websites have a navigation feature--usually the menu bar located at the top and often another one in the footer--that internal navigation was usually already built in to most websites and therefore, a silly topic to make a fuss over; however, I may be the silly one after all. I am now creating pages that are not included in the navigation so.... What is the best practice for this? If I am creating say, pages for certain locations and those location pages begin to number in the hundreds, it makes my navigation bar a little too cumbersome to have all those pages in a drop down menu. So I made a Locations page and just link to all those pages from that page (and from nowhere else). But now I'm wondering if this could be a bad internal linking practice and perhaps hurt my online visibility as an SEO ranking factor. Is this a crawl problem? And if so, is there a better option that provides a good visitor experience while appeasing the search engines.
Web Design | | Dino640 -
A Not Linked Page Question
Hello, I have a page for opening an account in my website, this page is not accessible from my website menu, the only way to reach this page if you have the URL, I send the URL for specific users I want them to open an account in my system. I have two questions regarding this: does this harm or cause damages to my website SEO ? blocking this page in Robots.txt will cause any issue/will help ? waiting for your answer.
Web Design | | JonsonSwartz
Thanks in advance,
Joni.0 -
Simple Wordpress Question regarding Footer Link
I have a client with a site that has the company that built their website's link in the footer. How can I remove this? I am pretty proficient with Wordpress but I am drawing a blank. The site is www.northatlantacleaning.com Thanks and I do extend the courtesy of awarding 'Best Answer' and thumbs up etc to good responses.
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Best strategy for multiple internal links
We have a website that has a whole heap of internal links. After re-structuring the footer links to the main categories we are now looking at the best way to display the internal links from each category (approx 20-50 links from each). At present they are simply listed on the corresponding category page, however this doesnt look great so we want to display them in a way that is user friendly and also seo friendly. Any suggestions and examples appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Web Design | | Silkstream0 -
To link or not to link | Do Follow or No Follow?
I want to link to an event on a separate ticket website from at least 20 major pages. Is it OK to post a description & title & links on those 20 pages that are the same? (duplicate - but account for less than 5% of total on-page content) Do you Link as Do-Follow or No-Follow? ... and why? Or should I just use their ticket widget and plug that registration form into those 20 pages. (There still is a link - do-Follow, but everything stays on the website) I have been getting a lot of confusing answers as to whether have external links as follow or nofollow. If you know of any RECENT resources about the topic based on evidence rather than opinions that would help a lot.
Web Design | | HMCOE0 -
Does on page links have an effect on SERP rankings with PANDA
I have been doing some competitive analysis basing my company on others and have noticed a pattern. Very high ranking sites seem to have limited the internal and external on page links on their subdomains to under 100. my site has a lot of links but all are relevant and lead to unique content. I am interested to know if anyone else has noticed this pattern in changes in the SERP results. bIs google now penalizing pages with to many on site nav links? And if a full site restructure is needed to allow google to index and rank these pages or if a it is a non issue and does not need to be addressed. Panda confuses me!!!!! HELP!
Web Design | | Brother220 -
Changing the domain - To do or not to do - that is the question
Hello, I am in the process of updating my website (hopefully to improve SEO). It is a major update as we are going from 20,000 product line to 200,000 product lines and hiring two marketing people to work on more content. Unfortunately, I think my domain isn't the best i.e. www.direct-tractorparts.com Some of the parts have long part numbers and I am worried that my URLs will be too long i.e. I will lose link juice from the search engines. typical url www.direct-tractorparts.com/6XY41210TTTAZCAz2 I am thinking of launching the new site with a shorter domain name rather than updating the old site. My site doesn't have that many backlinks but generates a decent level of business for my company. Not sure if it would be worth setting up another brand or not Anyone got any advice?
Web Design | | DavidLenehan0