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.
-
I would look more for a site that has a squeaky-clean profile of its own (both in terms of its inbound and outbound links), has an appropriate page to link to you from and (for extra credit) is perhaps marginally related to your business (also in tech, for instance), rather than go on its numbers and try to shoe-horn a link in there, if that makes sense.
-
Thanks Jane! Out of curiosity, what do you consider a strong domain/page authority in order to get a link from it?
-
Given how strict Google is about footer links (with fairly good reason; they have been abused badly so often that footer links with good intentions get swept up in the mix), I would nofollow those links if you wish to keep them because they've brought you qualified traffic.
If the client site is otherwise quite strong, consider looking for another location to link from in a way that seems editorially-chosen and "natural". It's unfortunate that footer links have become so "poisonous", but they truly are best avoided or nofollowed.
-
Yeah makes sense. I guess the answer is to take them off all together! Or put them on the homepage with nofollow and only on the homepage.
-
then you could always be cheeky and if you still have writes to edit the website remove the "nofollow", but as Moz said in there Whiteboard Friday, these are seen as spammy links in the footer - not great SEO tactics.
I guess its a debate about getting footer links and ranking in google in the short term to long term benefits of creating more natural links.
Also they said Sitewide links as not great SEO and a link in the footer is usually site wide - so its 2/5 of the bad SEO steps. My gut feeling would be not to do them in the long term you will probably be peanlised, but in the short term you need to make a living.
If this is part of a larger SEO plan maybe include a few links in certain website footers, but with the long term plan of doing none and work on writing interesting, exciting content people naturally link to, but make sure its not the only way you are getting links to your site as you risk losing all your natural rankings.
-
What if the client has awesome SEO themselves and a high domain authority etc.
-
If you watch the whiteboard Friday from last week:
http://moz.com/blog/the-rules-of-link-building-whiteboard-friday
rule number 4 is don't link to external links in the footer. Hence linking to your website is external link building - but that said sometimes it is useful to find out who built the website.
My advice would be to put the link in - but as "nofollow" link - therefore you can still hopefully generate any sales from people who liked your site build skills, but avoid getting your own site penalised in Google.
Plus if the site you designed did any bad SEO tricks and get themselves penalised you don't suffer - I guess once you have built the site you have very little control over there SEO tricks and they might go for quick win black hat SEO tricks and you wouldn't want to get down ranked for something that is out of your control - nofollow would resolve all the potential issues, but wouldn't affect sales
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
-
Value of no-follow links
I'm curious to understand roughly how much % of value a no-follow link has in building authority relative to a do-follow link? I understand that Google seems consistently and growingly focused on value - ie. is the link valuable in growing the business, irregardless of SEO - and perhaps therefore the no-follow / do-follow distinction is becoming a more unnecessary dichotomy. How does Google look at do-follow vs no-follow links? And how much weight now is really given to one compared to the other?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gavo0 -
Internal Linking
Hi I've been looking over my pages and it says for this page for example http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/1-6kw-halogen-heater I have too many links, I think it was about 178. These links are from the menu and bottom of the page - how much of an issue is this for internal linking structure? I wouldn't want to remove the menus or change them too much. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
My website is ranking well on most of keywords. How do I find more keywords in order to drive more traffic to my website?
I have a website which is ranking well on some good keywords ie generic and long tail. It is also ranking for some really competitive keywords. and now getting constant traffic. I want to increase organic traffic to my website. What are the best possible ways to do this? How to research more keywords and how to identify that they will really work? Please help, I am confused.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rishi.ast0 -
Do links to a domain that re-directs to my domain pass link equity?
Hi guys. We've recently taken control of a third-party site and we're going to set up a domain re-direct so any traffic comes to our site. With any existing links that the third-party site has, will these pass link equity to our main site through the redirect? Thanks, Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kevinliao0 -
Do you get links from new websites?
There's a new industry specific website that looks decent. It's clean and nothing spammy. However, it's so new it's DA is under 10. Is it worth pursuing a link from a site like this? On one hand, there's nothing spammy and it is industry specific. On the other...it's just DA is so terrible (worse than any of our other links), I don't want it to hurt us. Any thoughts? Ruben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
Is it safe to link my websites together?
Hi Everyone, I have 10 websites which are all of good standing and related. My visitors would benefit of knowing about the other websites but I don't want to trigger a google penalty by linking them all together. Ideally I'd also like to pass on importance through the links as well. How would you proceed in this situation? Advice would be greatly appreciated, Peter.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RoyalBlueCoffee0 -
How hard would it be to take a well-linked site, completely change the subject matter & still retain link authority?
So, this would be taking a domain with a domain authority of 50 (200 root domains, 3500 total links) and, for fictitious example, going from a subject matter like "Online Deals" to "The History Of Dentistry"... just totally unrelated new subject for the old/re-purposed domain. The old content goes away entirely. The domain name itself is a super vague .com name and has no exact match to anything either way. I'm wondering, if the DNS changed to different servers, it went from 1000 pages to a blog, ownership/contacts stayed the same, the missing pages were 301'd to the homepage, how would that fare in Google for the new homepage focus and over what time frame? Assume the new terms are a reasonable match to the old domain authority and compete U.S.-wide... not local or international. Bonus points for answers from folks who have actually done this. Thanks... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Bad links
Well just set up SEO Moz to find out someone thought it funny to build a load of links to our site http://bluetea.com.au/ with the anchor txt "Buy Cocks" .... PLEASE PLEASE let me know how much I should worry about this and how can I get rid of it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Intrested0