Are creative widgets still a good strategy in the Penguin world?
-
Im planning on building a small utility widget that my site will distribute to related sites. I plan on implementing this with JS and including a small anchor link back to my site.
In the new penguin world, will the possibly be destructive to my SEO efforts? Any do's or don'ts when developing a widget/badge for distribution to lets say a dozen sites?
-
To be a tad more specific I have a site that is a simple calculator utility that allows visitors to look up tire variations that are close to their current tire size. The site was created in 2007 and has some back-links including some references in wikipedia.
My goal is to build a simple calculator that encompasses the core tools into a widget that other "car" sites can use at their sites. My hopeful out come is to build 5-15 new inbound links from sites that will use the calculator on their sites.
-
Great responses from Eppie and Anthony. The only thing that I'd like to add (or repeat) is that look at the link profile and the history/age of the site you are getting these links for. If it's a very brand new kind of site (in terms of backlinks), launch the widget still, but promote it slowly and steadily and also continue to work on other kinds of links and lots and lots of great content on the site if possible...as in grow the site from both On-page as well as Off-page at the same time so that there is some sort of a co-relation to new content / new links.
I hope this helps.
-
Yes, you could you damage your SEO efforts with a poorly implemented widget campaign. Done correctly, it could provide a huge boost to your rankings. If I were you, I would:
- Avoid overusing an important anchor text term if you're taking a simple approach to the widget -- you're better off with a URL link than an exact match term if the widget will have broad distribution.
- Create a feature within the widget that limits the number of pages on the site the anchor text is displayed on (only the homepage of a site, perhaps) so that you don't end up with a profile full of only sitewides.
- Configure the widget to vary anchor text based on the page it's embedded on. You can grab the URL of the page (or the time of access if you prefer) and use that to seed a random number that correlates to anchor text variants. You could also potentially alter the page that's being linked to, which would keep it more natural. Just cache that data so that the specific page gets the same anchor text and destination repeatedly.
- You could extend the last idea for greater flexibility by having the widget make a call to your server to get the anchor text to use. Have it cache it for a defined period of time, so that you can later adjust your anchor text distribution if needed.
- Potentially have the widget vary its own footprint (insert random class and id names that aren't used, add extra markup like superfluous divs, change the position of your link slightly, etc) -- this would increase the likelihood that each instance of the link would be considered unique.
With any of these options, you should be clear about what the widget links to / how it links so that you don't end up with upset users. I'd also recommend providing an easy option for people to disable the link if they don't want it there.
Hope that helps.
eppie
-
Is this a sidebar (sitewide) widget or a single page/post style widget?
Here are a few of my thoughts:
The sitewide style widget would be safest for a site with an established natural backlink profile already built up. If the site is relatively new, consider adjusting the widget (making it bigger?) so it is something that is featured on a single page instead of every page.
If it is sitewide, make sure your anchor text is simply the company or website name. If it is single page, consider using anchor text that reads natural.
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
-
Is Shopify good for SEO?
Is Shopify good for SEO? Such as indexing or ranking? Some factors: - URL is too big Some default URL structure cannot change - /product/ , /collections/, /pages/ which makes the whole url so big Need expert's suggestions.
Algorithm Updates | | BBT-Digital1 -
Can hreflang tags still work when the Alternate URL is 301 redirecting to a translated URL in Japanese Characters?
My organization has several international sites 4 of them of which have translated URLs in either Japanese, Traditional Chinese, German & Canadian French. The hreflang tags we have set up on our United States look something like this: But when you actually go to http://www.domain.co.jp/it-security/ you are 301 redirected to the translated URL version: www.domain.co.jp/it-セキュリティ/
Algorithm Updates | | brantmk
My question is, will Google still understand that the translated URL is the Alternate URL, or will this present errors? The hreflang tags are automated for each of our pages and would technically be hard to populate the hreflang with the translated URL version. However we could potentially make the hreflang something customized on a page level basis.0 -
Is this good or not ?
Hello, when I type this: site:majordroid.com in Google search The result is in the photo , please see. My question is: Is this good or bad ? And if is bad how can I remove it from Google search? CMS is Wordpress and I use Yoast SEO.... my site is: http://www.majordroid.com/ Thank you 🙂 Ul13Ku2.png
Algorithm Updates | | ivek19870 -
With regards to SEO is it good or bad to remove all the old events from our website?
Our website sells tickets for various events across the UK, we do have a LOT of old event pages on our website which simply say SOLD OUT. What is the best practice? Should these event pages be removed and a 301 redirect added to redirect to the home page? Or should these pages remain in tact with simply SOLD OUT on the page?
Algorithm Updates | | Alexogilvie0 -
Using a sites custom code for multiple websites: good or bad?
Is it bad to utilize a custom codebase for multiple websites? Does that play a factor within Google? Also, what about hosting sites with the same custom codebase on the same dedicated server?
Algorithm Updates | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Post penguin & panda update. what would be a good seo strategies for brand new sites
Hi there. I have the luxury of launching a few sites after the penguin and panda updates, so I can start from scratch and hopefully do it right. I will get SEO companies to help me with this so i just want to ask for advices on what would be a good strategies for a brand new site. my understand of the new updates is this content and user experience is important, like how long they spend, how many pages etc social media is important. we intent to engage FB and twitter alot. in New Zealand, not too many people use google+ so we will probbaly just concentrate on the first two hopefully we will try to get people to share our website via social media, apparent that is important should only concentrate on high quality backlinks with a good diverse set of alt tags, but concentrate on branding rather than keywords. Am i correct to say that so far? if that is the principle, what would be the strategy to implement these goals? Links to any articles would also be great please. Love learning. i just want to do this right and hopefully try to future proof the sites against updates as possible. i guess quality content and links will most likely to be safe. Thank you for your help.
Algorithm Updates | | btrinh0 -
Any Google Panda/Penguin, etc updates late October 2012?
Not sure why my website traffic is dropping down late Oct 12. It showed a boost with the last Panda update in early Oct. Anyone know of a current update?
Algorithm Updates | | ChrisTS0 -
Climate of fear in the world of SEO
There certainly appears to be a certain climate of fear about backlinks at the mo, and not without reason. I was wondering why Google moved from simply discounting links to punishing site owners for their backlink profiles, many of which were built up when the risks of punishment weren't there? I mean, I could send them the names of at least 1,000 sites in linkfarms / blog rings - you name it. I'm sure most of us on here could do the same. Responding to the whims of Google is such a waste of time and resources. Why doesn't Google simply choose a direction and stick with it? What is their strategy exactly?
Algorithm Updates | | McTaggart0