SEOs and web developers frequently leave links to their site in the footer of their clients' sites. Does this negatively impact the site with the links?
-
Does this provide any SEO value to the receiving site? Has anyone experienced problems doing this?
-
Does this provide any SEO value to the receiving site?
No
Has anyone experienced problems doing this?
There are not any problems that can arise from this issue unless the target site which belongs to the SEO receives a penalty. If you stick with SEOs whom use only white hat techniques this should never be a problem.
Does this negatively impact the site with the links?
No. If you want to really look at this topic under a microscope then a very small amount of PR would flow from your site to the SEO's site. How small? If your site had 100 links per page and the PR flowed evenly to all links then we are talking about 1%. Google has inferred they devalue footer links so most likely it is a fraction of one percent.
If the SEO is doing their job well and you are pleased with their performance, I would suggest leaving the link. If you are unhappy with the SEO's performance and would not recommend their services, remove the link.
Personally, the link is something I discuss with clients upfront. I inform them exactly the words I shared in the above paragraph. If you are happy with me, leave the link and otherwise remove it.
-
I think it is a strategy which has been around pretty much since SEO started, I have seen this done for soo many years say the last 12.
I saw recently for a very strong term a site was over taken by a site that has 1/4 the total links of the top site, reason been the top site has say 1000+ and they place site wide footer links for a term on all these clients website.
It is obvious Google is aware of this practice and is de-value these types of links.
It is good for the company but I guess because they provide free advertising and also links back to their main website.
But it seems to hold some value, overall the best links are within content, near the top of the page on authority websites.
-
Hi
I believe that this practice is at best a little old hat and at worst has a negative effect on the client's site. On a homepage there will be links to deeper pages eg brands, categories, etc. It is through the homepage that juice will flow to these pages. If there are unnecessary outbound links on the homepage then this juice will be diluted, if only by a little. As the objective of an SEO is to optimise the clients page they really shouldn't post footer links. If they insist? then they should be no follow.
-
I have just had a look at the search results for the query "web design sheffield" which ranks as 48% keyword difficulty using the keyword difficulty tool.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=web+design+sheffield
The No 2 results evoluted.net appears to have built most of it's links through footer links which suggests it does have value for SEO purposes.
I guess the concern is that the clients sites content is likely to be completely unrelated to the developers sites content, however, it is a legitimate relationship and the developer is simply being credited for their good work.
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
-
Block Links From Spam sites
can you block links from other websites?ie: links backlinking to your site, causing a high spam score.
Link Building | | Socialdom0 -
'Powered by...' anchor text links
Hi Mozzers! We're a web design and dev agency in Kent, UK who don't really provide SEO services (tend to outsource and focus on our core competencies!) Have never really bothered putting 'Powered by...' or 'built by...' anchor text links at the foot of our client sites that link back to ours. Obvs we have a huge back catalogue of opportunities to add this to various sites which, if clients agree of course, would push our backlinks above our key competitors overnight (according to OSE). Good idea or Spammy/back hattie??? Cheers guys.
Link Building | | mjs_adr0 -
How to explain to a client that link building doesn't get fast results?
I started doing link building for a client 1 month and a half ago. This includes submitting to free directories, social bookmarking sites and also writing and submitting articles to free article websites. Since I only use free and non-paid websites, it doesn't get approved instantly and many links I submitted are still pending review. Now the client is getting all nervous because he doesn't see a ROI regarding my work! I tried to explain to him that link building is just a piece of the cake and especially using non-instant approval free directories, it can take up to several months for each link to be listed (if listed), so it doesn't have instant results! I'm also trying to convince him that he needs to create more engaging content on his website, and also invest more on social media in order to get non-solicited links. I'm really annoyed with this. Can you SEO guys help me explaining to him why he doesn't see a great ROI with just 1 month and a half of link building and why his website's Moz Rank and Moz Trust decreased and that's normal to happen!? Thanks!
Link Building | | blablabla20130 -
Why does my site only have 4 internal followed links/internal links?
When using Open Site Explorer my site is winning in many categories but lacking in others as compared to competitors. I intend to improve on this but am a little confused by the extremely low number of "internal followed links" and "internal links" at just 4. My competitors have much more than that. Does this mean links to the root domain? Total internal links? I have many internal links so I'm having a hard time figuring this one out. What four internal links are getting noticed? I just went through and changed all the links that went to index.html to link to the root domain at www.njlimocarservice.com as I just found a Q&A that indicates this was better. So as of Wed at 5:45 PM all my links to the homepage went to index.html and not the root which is no longer the case. Not sure if this matters. At the same time I also just put a 301 from index.html to redirect to www.njlimocarservice.com. Any help appreciated! h9QuF.png
Link Building | | kabledesigns0 -
Footer Back Links Question "Site by built by"
Hi all I design and develop websites for clients within the UK. With each website I build, I always add a link to the footer of the website which links back to my website. I have always used the link anchor text "Site By Jump" but then decided to try to use the link anchor text to our benefit by changing the links across all of our portfolio of sites to be: "Graphic Design by Jump"
Link Building | | yousayjump
or
"Web Design by Jump" In the hope that this helped us rank better for those keyword phrases. Now something occurred to me the day. Most of the websites I build have no relevance to the content on our website. For example, I could build a website for Baby Food and add a backlink to our homepage which doesn't even mention the words "baby food". In some cases, the websites can have thousands of pages, each with this footer link appearing at the bottom of each page. My question is, could these backlinks potentially be seen as black hat or spam to a search engine? I.e. thousands of backlinks from websites that have no relevance in terms of content all linking back to my homepage? Thank you for reading and any advice would be greatly appreciated.0 -
What's the difference between follow and nofollow links?
I understand this may be a really dumb question and from my understanding there is a piece of code in some url's that tell search engines not to follow that link. I am interested in finding out what the purpose of nofollow links are and how they apply to search rankings. Thanks for the help
Link Building | | A2890 -
What are the best tactics for SEO on a brand new site?
What is on everyones to do list when starting SEO work on a brand new site that has had no SEO work done in the past?
Link Building | | MediaBazooka0