How are links in ads perceived ?
-
Hi,
Please can someone remind me how links in display ads are perceived by G ?
A client of mine has purchased a display campaign with an industry related on-line publication that has lead to a massive spike in reported back links in Google Search Console (the new GWT). Does Google automatically identify these as ads (due to tracker codes etc) rather than paid backlinks or should they, like links in press releases, be no-followed or other advice ?
Cheers
Dan
-
Brilliant ! thanks so much for all that great info i really appreciate it !!
However the Mozbar highlighting doesn't have an effect on links in graphics like banners etc, only on text type links etc as far as i can see. Am i missing something here ?
All Best
Dan
-
Moz toolbar. See top left.
Screenshot before toolbar is set to highlight no follows
http://i.imgur.com/05p5h0T.png
Screenshot after after toolbar is set to highlight no follows
http://i.imgur.com/YSGw1gK.png
Example of toolbar highlighting no follows
http://i.imgur.com/Xy4iL9i.png
Other resources to learn more about Moz bar
https://moz.com/help/guides/research-tools/mozbar
https://moz.com/blog/announcing-mozbar-v3
http://www.poweredbysearch.com/mozbar-seo-extension-chrome-firefox/
or you can Google "Moz bar guide"
https://www.google.com/search?q=mozbar+guide
Search console is link agnostic.
https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq--webmaster-tools
Q: I know I have [one / several / dozens of ] links that Search Console isn't showing. What gives?
A: Although the link reports in Search Console are more comprehensive than doing a [link:example.com] query in Google search, they may not include 100% of all links that you know about. This is normal and should not be cause for alarm. Search Console does not always show 100% of the links that Google knows about, so just because a particular link doesn't appear in Search Console doesn't mean that Google doesn't know about that link, or that your site isn't "getting credit" for that link.Note that the link report in Search Console only shows whether a site is linking to yours; it doesn't show which links are most significant, and it can include links that are nofollowed, disavowed, or that don't pass PageRank.
-
Hi Clever PHD dont spose you can advise in regard to my last question (or anyone else in MOz team) ....That Moz bar can look at elements beyond the page level so i can determine if banner ads on a page have been 'no followed' ?
Also if these links are showing up in GWT/Search console does that mean that they are 'followed' or does search console show all links it finds ?
Cheers
dan
-
Which bit of it will ? thought MOzbar just looks at the page (rather than specific elements of it, like a banner ad) ?
cheers
dan
-
Moz toolbar will do it.
-
any tips for quickly checking if an ad has a 'no follow' on its link i.e. a browser based tool etc ?
much appreciated !
all best
dan
-
Ok thanks for the info !
Have a great weekend !
All Best
Dan
-
That would be best practice and the conservative approach to tell clients to no follow any banner ads pointing to the site. If you call yourself a white hat seo that follows Google guidelines, then that is your route. Not all SEOs are of this ilk, so what others do is up to them.
I would not expect that a publisher know to add a no follow. They are not focused on SEO, they are just focused on selling banners. As you are paying them for the banner, they should be able to accommodate this.
If they were not, you can have them direct the banner to a page on your site that is blocked via robots.txt and then (if needed) 301 redirect the page to the page that you want the user to see.
-
cool thanks for confirming cleverphd !
so as far as you know (and practice) most seo's will tell their clients to 'no follow' any banner ad campaigns they are carrying out etc ?
also is it now standard best practice to expect publishers when selling banner ad campaigns to 'no follow' their ads as standard ?
all best
dan
-
All paid links should be no-followed. Google is very clear about this
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
The following are examples of link schemes which can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results:
- Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link
Can Google always tell if links are paid or not, no. Do the eventually figure out things, yes. If they figure it out in this case (and they might for the reasons you mention) that site could get penalized. Even if Google did not penalize, when the ad campaign ends, those links go away and the value goes away.
I would stay on the conservative side and ask that those links get no-followed. Try and find away to reap the benefits of the click through traffic from those ads.
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
-
Adding external links to other businesses
Hi,
Link Building | | LisaBabblebird
I'm looking to add some external links to a website. The homepage has a section showing the logos of clients the company has worked with. Is it worth making these logos links to the clients websites? Some of the clients are household names. However, I've noticed that very few websites do this. Would it add any value?0 -
If you discount a subscription when the client links to you, does that classify as a paid link?
For example, we all subscribe to MOZ, but if we received a 25% discount on our subscription if we linked back, would that be considered by Google as a paid link, or would it be seen as a sales tool / promotion?
Link Building | | JonathanSmith0 -
Do links from between common sites you run count as "bad" links?
Hi everyone,
Link Building | | AMA-DataSet
Iv recently been asked to review a group of sites. There are 3 sites, each of these sites has a link to the other two sites within the footer or the navigation.
These site are about a similar topic each provides a different perceptive or aims at a specific section of the industry so its not like the links are to irreverent sites. However because the links are in a global section they are repeated thousands of times on each site and count for a large proportion of the link profile to each site, I don't think this is good practise and I want to remove them or at least add a no-follow but my client insists they are relevant to each other and doesn't not want the links removing. What would be best in this situation? remove them? no-follow them? or leave them? Thank you in advance,
Liam0 -
Outbound links
Hi there, i know inbound links are what hold the main value in terms of link building but if i have an inbound link from a big company such as ITV or BBC and they have put an article on their site linking back to mine, would it be beneficial if i made a comment on my site and then link back to their article or will this not really help? Sorry as you can tell im very new to seo! thanks anthony
Link Building | | anthonybriant0 -
Linked in public profiles
It seems that linked in is doing some type of redirect on their links, that block them from passing value to the connected site. Is there anyway to get link value out of public LinkedIn profiles, or did they shut that down?
Link Building | | VanadiumInteractive0 -
Blog traffic / link ratio? (Esimated of how much traffic will result in a link)
Hi, Was wondering if people could please tell me some estimates of how much traffic is likely to gain links to a blog post? For example 1,000 hits = 1 link, Hence 10,000 hits = 10 links to a blog post? I understand there is no magic ratio I just want to know what people have achieved. I’m after averages not just a one off really successful blog post too. Please specify the topic you achieve this in e.g. SEO, photography, business, heath... etc.
Link Building | | charles10 -
Should I unify my links?
Checking at opensiteexplorer.org I can see that: mydomain.com has has DA 26, linking root domains 1, total links 22 www.mydomain.com has DA 26, linking root domains 31, total links 89 The 22 links to the non-www domain come from the same site, which I would be able to convince to change to the www domain. Is it worth doing it? Will it add up to better DA? Thanks J PS: with only 32 root domains I think I have to do some serious link building...
Link Building | | TIBA0 -
Do image links with no alt tags pass link value?
"... an image link with no alt tag is useless to search engines..." according to a Nov 2007 seomoz blog post. Is this still the case in 2011? I ask because I'm about to obtain a banner link on a high-traffic site (chiefly for the clickthrough value) but I notice the site uses neither "title" nor "alt" tags.
Link Building | | Jeepster0