Avoiding the penguin slap in the face.
-
I work with a web design / SEO company and when we complete a site we want the credit for it, a link at the bottom of the page we build does suffice... Problem is this causes irrelevant linking / unnatural linking. If we "nofollow" these are we ducking the penguin? Are we better off not linking at all?
-
I agree that it certainly should be discussed in advance, but to me it seems petty. It is as if you are saying to the client that their money wasn't enough.
-
Lots of designers and developers believe that they are entitled to these attribution links and insist upon them being on the sites that they produce.
I think that this is something that should be discussed in advance with the client. I believe that it is the client's call because it is his website. In fact, there are some sites that are important enough or have enough traffic (or linkjuice) that the designer should pay huge money to have those links appear on the client site.
I know that plenty of designers will disagree strongly with this.
When I see an SEO's links in the footer of a client site I really shake my head. I think that it is pretty sleezy to be sucking the linkjuice from client sites when instead they should be trying to get linkjuice flowing INTO those site.
-
Nofollowing them is fine, but honestly I think that links back are very tacky. You can always take credit via comments in the code, but an exposed link just doesn't make much sense. Advertising companies don't put their names on commercials, construction companies don't leave their names on your house, and web developers shouldn't leave their links on their clients' sites.
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
-
Facing Link Crisis
Hi Link Heroes, I have just come across a link crisis on my site. There is a sharp and sudden rise in No. of Links. Latest details are as under: External Followed Links 582 Total External Links 710 Total Links 30548 Followed Linking Root Domains 92 Total Linking Root Domains 126 Can somebody come to help that : What are the reasons for sharp rise in total number of links and How it impacts my site (I notice a drop in DA) What are the solutions Tanveer
Link Building | | Sequelmed0 -
Best Anchor Text Practices Post Penguin Panda
my question is what are the best practices Post Penguin and Panda for anchor texts? I have heard info about using brand names, and not having duplicate anchor texts. But i'm confused; if its best to have brand names then likely it will end up being duplicate. Also is having no anchor bad? I have also heard that it is best just to use the website URL. It would be great if someone could clear this up for me thanks.
Link Building | | ilyaelbert0 -
Which is the best link building method after Google penguin update & why?
We are currently offering our client pre penguin these activities for link building: Local listing Directory submission bookmarking article submission blog comment guest post business review squidoo lens Forum posting infograhics My questions is which is the best link building method and is there any activity that is redundant now. thanks
Link Building | | conversiontactics0 -
Website Hit by Penguin Update Rising Back From The Dead?
I have a website that had been hit quite hard by the Google Penguin update, losing about 75% of its traffic. The website dropped to positions 300 - 400 for it's most significant keywords. The website had some unnatural links but not that much, maybe about 10 to 20 unnatural links and I've had them all removed about a month ago by the SEO company (submitcomfort.com). Another issue with this website is that it was hacked in early 2012 and hackers used a writeable directory to store porn stuff (my website has absolutely nothing to do with porn!). That said, the website acquired lots of backlinks from porn and warez websites. But today I noticed that impressions are now up by 23% and clicks are up by 54% according to Google Webmaster Tools and it's now ranking in positions 30 to 50 for it's main keywords. So my question is: was that a penalty that's just been lift off? How can it come back from the dead like this? I'm investigating before reinvesting time and money in this website because I'm not sure if this is temporary. Thank you
Link Building | | sbrault740 -
Link Building - Post Penguin
Hi, We have an eCommerce site that has recently been hit for some unnatural linking, resulting in a warning in our Google Webmaster Tools account. We weren't doing anything particularly underhand (and indeed before Penguin there wasn't a cause for concern) but nevertheless Google has picked up and penalised us. We've instantly removed the worst offending links and requested a resubmission. If this doesn't result in positive action from Google we're planning on employing the services of an Oracle member on SEOmoz who was kind enough to give us some fantastic free advice in order to go through and remove any further links that may be seen as questionable. Moving forward however I'm a little bit overwhelmed as to exactly what we should be doing in order to create a positive, natural link portfolio. I understand the emphasis is on ‘natural’ linking but we’ve been online for 8 years and I think it’s fairly safe to say that the number of links we have now is probably representative of about our ‘lot’ when it comes to 100% natural links. It would be nice to give our portfolio a nice gentle push in the right direction. I’ve checked through SEOmoz and the most up to date link building article they have appears to be http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links - This guide however does seem to suggest some things that are potentially frowned upon now (for example, highly optimised anchor text I understand is now a no-no). Obviously, in days gone by I could look at Open Site Explorer to try to emulate my competitors but, to be honest, most of them have what I would describe as a fairly poor link profile and if I'm going to invest real time in to this I want to make sure I'm heading off in the right direction. Does anybody on here know of a really high quality post penguin link building guide, either on SEOmoz or elsewhere that I can use as some bedtime reading? Our website is eCommerce in nature so an article tailored towards online selling would be ideal. Thanks for reading! Chris
Link Building | | ChrisHolgate0 -
Post Penguin Blog Commenting Links
I have heard a few different things, and I am still not quite clear. Regarding blog commenting, what is the preferred way to do it now? Should the text that is hyperlinked just be our main website name written out http://www.example.com? Is anchor text the text that is hyperlinked? And should the link always go to our home page, or should it go to whatever page we are commenting about. Is blog commenting still good to do post penguin?
Link Building | | Craig2100 -
Should You Avoid Links from Sites with Big Difference Between PR and MozRank?
If a site has a Google toolbar PR of 2 and a Mozrank of 5, does that most likely mean that the site is penalized and a link would probably provide little value. I know that Google rarely updates toolbar PR so I suppose the site could have also earned a lot of quality links since the last update. Thanks Mozzers!
Link Building | | SparkplugDigital0