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.
Backlinks in Footer - The good, the bad, the ugly.
-
I tried adding onto a question already listed, however that question stayed where it was and didn't go anywhere close to somewhere others would see it, since it was from 2012.
I have a competitor who is completely new, just popped onto the SERPs in December 2015. Now I've wondered how they jumped up so fast without really much in the way of user content.
Upon researching them, I saw they have 200 backlinks but 160 of them are from their parent company, and of all places coming from the footer of their parent company. So they get all of the pages of that domain, as backlinks.
Everything I've read has told me not to do this, it's going to harm the site bad if anything will discount the links.
I'm in no way interested in doing what they did, even if it resulted in page 1 ( which it has done for them ), since I believe that it's only a matter of time, and once that time comes, it won't be a 3 month recovery, it might be worse.
What do you all think?
My question or discussion is why hasn't this site been penalized yet, will they be penalized and if not, why wouldn't they be?
**What is the good, bad and ugly of backlinks in the footer: **
- Good
- Bad
- Ugly
-
There are plenty of very large sites doing this--it's natural for them to link to the sites that they own. It all really comes down to the sites' link profiles, and if their link profile is diversified enough. If those links are the only links (or a large portion of) the links that they have, there might be an issue. But if the parent site is trusted enough, has a high enough Domain Authority, then most likely the site won't be penalized for the parent site linking to them.
-
Here's my take. Some footer bests aren't necessarily links.
**What is the good, bad and ugly of backlinks in the footer: **
- Good: Links are like a mini sitemap. Footer is a very useful addition to the page above it. Features heavily used features of the site that benefit the page by being available in the footer as well. NAP. Anti-Spam. If links are external, they're to parent or partner companies within the same overall company.
- Bad: Spammy. Tries to link to every page on the site with keyword heavy text. Broken links. Obvious paid links to external sites.
- **Ugly: **Low utility. Never updated. Service provider links.
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
-
High Rank and Traffic of low DA and Backlinks
Hi guys, is a pleasure being a part of this community, hope in learning a lot with you guys, i just started a year learning about SEO and it been a big journey. I was looking at some competition of some websites that i been optmizing, and i found a website that called my attention and i cant figure out whats going on, it haves huge traffic but in terms of technicall SEO is really week, and not just this but also in terms of DA and backlinks (most of them spammy - 20 backlinks), the domain in question is bhnews.com.br I notice that doesnt have any social media, not analytics, etc. The only thing that i notice is that there is a website or a company called "BH news" (televesion), but its not related with it, since the type of information that bhnews.com.br presents is "lottery" results. So this kind of situation confuses me a lot, because is a lot of hard work in optmizing a website to rank in google, and than i come a across with this type of website with 20 backlinks (most of anchor or name of domain), and than haves like 2M visits per month and ranks for keywords related with the this type of sites of lottery. Can someone tell me if there is some kind of black seo, or something that is making this rank so high? regards
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jogobicho0 -
Malicious backlinks
Hello to everyone! We have identified some weird links that are pointing to our site and we are not sure if they are considered malicious backlinks and we should disavow them. Most of them are directories of websites, the most common one is called "Top million domains by alexa" (you can see an example here: www.besafe.in/domain-list-237). Have you ever seen these kind of links before? Are they causing harm to our site? Thank you so much!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | xaviplabor0 -
SSL Importance For Backlinks
I am trying to build some good quality backlinks, how important is SSL for the site that we post guest blogs on? I realize that if a site does not have SSL currently, their DA will likely not go up very fast because of Google's new algorithms, but currently, I am looking at a couple sites with a DA of 40 and 41. By the way, my site has SSL (is https). Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CSBarns0 -
Negative SEO - Spammy Backlinks By Competitor
Hi Everyone, Someone has generated more than 22k spam backlinks (on bad keywords) for my domain.Will it hurt on my website (SEO Ranking)? Because it is already in the top ranking. How could I remove all the spammy backlinks? How could I know particular competitior who have done this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HuptechWebseo0 -
Client Wants To Use A .io Domain Name - How Bad For Organic?
Hi, I have a U.S. client who is stuck on a name that he wants to get as a .io (British Indian Ocean) domain name for a new site. Aside from the user confusion/weirdness, how much harder do you think this makes this sites organic in the U.S. in the future with a .io domain name? FYI, the other part of the domain name he wants to use is short, meaningless and implies nothing in and of itself. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 945012 -
Are All Paid Links and Submissions Bad?
My company was recently approached by a website dedicated to delivering information and insights about our industry. They asked us if we wanted to pay for a "company profile" where they would summarize our company, add a followed link to our site, and promote a giveaway for us. This website is very authoritative and definitely provides helpful use to its audience. How can this website get away with paid submissions like this? Doesn't that go against everything Google preaches? If I were to pay for a profile with them, would I request for a "nofollow" link back to my site?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jampaper1 -
A Straight Answer to Outsourcing Backlinking, Directory Submission and Social Bookmarking
Hey SEOmoz Community! I've spent a bit of time now reading about SEO in books as well as online here within the SEOmoz community. However, I've still struggled to find a straight answer to whether or not directory submissions to non-penalized websites is acceptable.I suspect the reason I haven't found a straight YES or NO answer is because it isn't so straightforward and I respect that. My dilemma is as follows: I want to raise the domain authority for a few websites that I optimize for. I've submitted and gotten listed a bunch of excellent backlinks, however it still is a painfully slow process. My clients understandably want to see results faster, and because they have virtually no past outsourced link-building campaigns, I am beginning to think that I can invest some money for outsourcing directory submissions. I see more and more people talking about the latest Penguin updates, and how many of these sites are now penalized. BUT, is there any harm to submitting to directories such as the ones on SEOmoz's spreadsheet that aren't penalized? My concern is that in the future these will be penalized anyways, and is there a chance then that my site will also be de-listed from Google? At what point does Google completely 'blacklist' your site from its engine? Furthermore, I don't understand how Google can penalize a website to the point of de-listing it, because what would prevent other competitors from sending mass spammy back-links to another? What it all comes down to: At this point, are verified mass directory submissions through outsourcing still much more beneficial than detrimental to the ranking of a website? Thanks SEOmoz community, Sheldon
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | swzhai0 -
Is it negative to put a backlink into the footer's website of our clients ?
Hello there ! Everything is in the subject of this post but here is the context : we are a web agency and we, among others, build websites for our clients (most of them are shops). Until now, we put a link in their footer, like "developped by MyWebShop". But we don't know if it is bad or not. With only one website we can have like hundred of backlinks at once, but is it good for SEO or not ? Will Google penalize us thinking that is blackhat practices ? Is it better to put our link in the "legal notices" or "disclaimer" part of the websites ? What is the best practice for a lasting SEO ? I hope you understand my question, Thnak you in advance !
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mywebshop0