Self-referencing links
-
I personally think that self-referencing links are silly. It's blatantly easy for Google to tell and my instinct says that the link juice for this would simply evaporate rather than passing back to itself.
Does anyone have information backing me up from an authoritative source? I can't find any info about this linked to Matt Cutts, Rand or any of those I look up to.
-
Howdy,
Depends on your definition of self-referencing links, as there are several degrees.
- Internal links, pointing from one page to another
- On page anchor links, simply pointing to another part of the same page, usually for navigation purposes
- Truly self-referencing, where a link simply points to it's own page in an attempt to trick a search engine.
Normal internal links (1) are an important part of any website and give search engines important clues about relevance, site structure, and how to flow signals like PageRank. Internal links are very important for SEO, but also the most easy to abuse, so you can get yourself in trouble if you overdo it with aggressive over linking or over-optimized anchor text. And keep in mind that while internal links are important, they don't pack near the punch as authoritative external links.
Internal anchors (2) such as http://example.com#football are also important for navigation, and Google does use them often for clues about content and structure. You'll often see internal anchors show up in search results, especially for sites like Wikipedia.
Finally, I don't see any value in the truly self-referencing link (3). A page that points to itself seems like a mistake, and using it to game a search engine is most likely a bad idea.
As for authoritative sources, you could look at the 2011 Ranking Factors, which shows that the # of internal links on the page is fairly correlated with high rankings. (and notice the anchor in that link, as well
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO!
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
-
Linking shallow sites to flagship sites
We have hundreds of domains that we are either doing nothing with, or they are very shallow. We do not have the time to build enough quality content on them since they are ancillary to our flagship sites that are already in need of attention and good content. My question is...should we redirect them to the flagship site? If yes, is it ok to do this from root domain to root domain or should we link the root domain to a matching/similar page (gymfranchises.com to http://www.franchisesolutions.com/health_services_franchise_opportunities.cfm)? Or should we do something different altogether? Since we have many to redirect (if this is the route we go), should we redirect gradually?
Technical SEO | | franchisesolutions0 -
Confused on footer links (Which are best practices for footer links on other websites?)
Hello folks, We are eCommerce web design and Development Company and we give do follow links of our website to every projects which we have done with specific keywords. So now the concern is we are seeing huge amount of back-links are being generated from single root domain for particular keyword in webmaster tools. So what should be the best way to practice this? Should we give no follow attribute to it or can use our company logo with link? LtMjHER.png
Technical SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
Links from Instructables.com?
This is a silly newbie question. But will posting on www.instructables.com with some valuable content and url link back to my site help with "linking"? Or do they put a no-follow on all links on their site? Thanks for answering! Ron
Technical SEO | | yatesandcojewelers0 -
Are no follows leaking link juice?
Recently, in a discussion on resources pages EGOL informed me that just because I had no followed the links on my my resource page, I was still leaking link juice. He mentioned that this was a recent change in Google policy. This was quite a surprise. I have done a couple of searches on this recent change but have not found any information. Am I simply the last one on the planet to learn this and this change is widely known and understood? If so, does that mean honest resource pages (I have two such pages) that are there to help visitors are negatively impacting the site - at least in terms of SEO? If they are leaking link juice is it comparable to a followed link or a smaller amount that has less impact?
Technical SEO | | leatherhidestore0 -
Does Google monitor which links are actually followed?
If a link to my site is posted on another site and many people start following that link and they stay on my site for a while, and I also have GA set up, does Google factor that information back into the Google rankings? In other words, are there ways that Google tries to use clicks and bounce rates and other user behavior to determine page rank and domain rank? Best,
Technical SEO | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher1 -
Linking from and to pages
My website, www.kamperen-bij-de-boer.com, tells people what campingssites can be found in The Netherlands for recreational purposes. In order for a campingsite to be mentioned on our website we ask them to place a link to our website (either using a text link or image link) and then we make a page for that campsite on our website with in the end a link to ther website, e.g. http://www.kamperen-bij-de-boer.com/Minicamping-In-t-Oldambt.html -> they in return link back to us. Since this comes natural will this or won't this be penalized by Google and so on for linkfarming. At this moment we have about 600 camping sites on our website alone linking to us (not all of them) and we are linking to them. Since this can be explained as link trading which is not as good for your ranking as one-way-linking what should be wise? Should i include a nofollow? I already have many links from other sites linking to mine without having to link back, is there anything else i can do with linking to ensure better ranking?
Technical SEO | | JarnoNijzing0 -
How to find artificial or unnatural links in OSE?
Hi, I just got a message from Google Webmaster Tools telling that there are "artificial or unnatural links" pointing to one of my subdomains, and that I should investigate and submit my site for reconsideration. The subdomain in question has inbound links from 4K linking root domains. We are a certificate authority (we provide SSL certificates) so the majority of those links come from the site seal that customers place on their secure pages. We sell certificates to a full spectrum site types, from all sizes of ecommerce sites to .edu, .gov, and even adult. That said, our linking root domains have always been a mixed bunch, which tells me that these offending links were recently added. Here are my questions: Is it possible to slice my link reports with some sort of time element, so that I can narrow the search to only the newest inbound links? How else might I use OSE to find these "artificial or unnatural links"? Are there any particular attributes I should be looking for in a linking root domain that might suggest it's seen by Google as "artificial or unnatural". Any help with any aspect of this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Dennis p.s. I should probably state that I've never bought links or participated in link schemes.
Technical SEO | | dennis.globalsign0 -
Preserving Link Value
My client has an existing domain, domain A. They recently purchased and absorbed another company with their own domain, domain B. For marketing purposes company B will be rebranded as company A. They want to redirect domain B to domain A. The problem is that company B has by far the more visible domain, with 4x the number of inbound links. If I redirect domain B to domain A, what will happen to these links? I'm thinking their value will be lost.
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0