undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Technical SEO
  4. Website credits for designers - good or bad

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.

Website credits for designers - good or bad

Technical SEO
5
8
1.3k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • Cocoonfxmedia
    Cocoonfxmedia last edited by Jan 29, 2013, 8:33 PM

    Hi My core service is web design and development. I often place a credit on my clients websites pointing them back to my web design or web development pages. Is this a wise practice with penguin and panda updates? Would this also pull my ranking down?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • ThompsonPaul
      ThompsonPaul @Cocoonfxmedia last edited by Jan 31, 2013, 11:11 PM Jan 31, 2013, 11:11 PM

      Wow, yea... 85,000 incoming footer links would be a problem 🙂

      Do let us know in a followup if you see a difference.

      Good luck!

      P.

      P.S. And thanks for the 'good answer' vote 🙂

      <object id="plugin0" style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;" width="0" height="0" type="application/x-dgnria"><param name="tabId" value="undefined"> <param name="counter" value="144"></object>

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Cocoonfxmedia
        Cocoonfxmedia @ThompsonPaul last edited by Jan 31, 2013, 7:52 PM Jan 31, 2013, 7:52 PM

        That is actually an excellent approach, I have looked at two clients sites on as 50,000 links back to my hosting page and another has 35,000 back to my design page. The link is within the footer of everypage. (one site has news items updating every 30mins so that's why the numbers are so high) I can easily change the footers to no follow and then ask if I can put a little sentence into the about page on there site saying thanks to me creating the site. I can implement this change on the big site instantly as they allow me to do what I want to the site:o) Excited to see if this makes a difference now 🐵 thanks

        ThompsonPaul 1 Reply Last reply Jan 31, 2013, 11:11 PM Reply Quote 0
        • ThompsonPaul
          ThompsonPaul last edited by Jan 31, 2013, 7:52 PM Jan 31, 2013, 6:42 PM

          I'm going to suggest a hybrid of a number of the approaches mentioned, Cocoon. And the reason is because you essentially have two different purposes in mind.

          The footer links should be thought of as click-generating links for real eyeballs. You want to make it easy if someone like the site you designed to be able to find you as the developer. So it's primary purpose is click-throughs. Design it as the call to action you think will best generate clickthroughs.Making the anchor text a little different on each site can't hurt either.

          Being sitewide, and on several different sites, these footer links are prime candidates for Penguin devaluation, so no-follow these. Which isn't a problem because you're designing them for clickthrough, not rank-passing anyway.

          Then, see if you can get an editorial link from the website as well. "About" pages can be ideal for this as they usually rank fairly well so can pass some juice. And it makes sense that an About page might talk about the folks who built the site. An added advantage is that About pages don't generally have a huge number of additional links, so there's more juice to pass.

          And DEFINITELY try to get reviews from your satisfied clients on Google and Yelp at least. Web designers don't typically show up in local search features, but getting the reviews to help your Google+ Local page to rank as well is still very valuable.

          Interested to know what you think of this approach.

          Paul

          <object id="plugin0" style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;" width="0" height="0" type="application/x-dgnria"><param name="tabId" value="undefined"> <param name="counter" value="166"></object>

          Cocoonfxmedia 1 Reply Last reply Jan 31, 2013, 7:52 PM Reply Quote 2
          • NeilD
            NeilD @WhoWuddaThunk last edited by Jan 30, 2013, 9:36 AM Jan 30, 2013, 9:36 AM

            We are about to change how we do link back to our site with the method you describe e.g. home page only link which goes to a the project page for that client on our website.

            What's the most appropriate format for such a footer link? Should the footer link be brand name text or keyword text or image link with an appropriate alt tag?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • WhoWuddaThunk
              WhoWuddaThunk @TakeshiYoung last edited by Jan 29, 2013, 9:00 PM Jan 29, 2013, 9:00 PM

              The main intent with the footer link is to try acquire additional clients, so just having it in a blog post can potentially cost you business.  However, you do have to worry about over-optimizing yourself due to all the links with exact match anchor text.  There was actually a different blog post about this recently:

              http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2239260/Using-Footer-Links-to-Diversify-Your-Backlink-Profile

              In the article it suggested creating a page on your website specifically about this project.  This ensures that you link to a relevant page, in Google's eyes, as well as a relevant page for anyone that is interested in your services.  The blog also suggests no-following all of the links minus the one on the home page.  That way you still get a decent amount of link juice, but don't have to worry about a site-wide link.

              NeilD 1 Reply Last reply Jan 30, 2013, 9:36 AM Reply Quote 2
              • Cocoonfxmedia
                Cocoonfxmedia @TakeshiYoung last edited by Jan 29, 2013, 8:57 PM Jan 29, 2013, 8:57 PM

                That's a sound solution , I ve been adding to the footer. Possible get them to write review on google places reviews. Think need to change my approach. Cheers Takeshi

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • TakeshiYoung
                  TakeshiYoung last edited by Jan 29, 2013, 8:47 PM Jan 29, 2013, 8:47 PM

                  I think it's still a fine way of getting links, as long as you're not overdoing it.  Instead of spamming anchor text links in the footers like a lot of companies do, you could try just having a link on the homepage, or have them write a blog post about your company with an in-context link.

                  Cocoonfxmedia WhoWuddaThunk 2 Replies Last reply Jan 29, 2013, 9:00 PM Reply Quote 2
                  • 1 / 1
                  1 out of 8
                  • First post
                    1/8
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  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.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • Rich-DC

                    Date in permalinks. Bad?

                    Hello! I have a recipe website with over 1000 posts. Currently I have the month and year in the permalink that everyone is hinting off to me is bad. On the same front people tell me if I change the permalinks to just the post name it's going to significantly slow down my site. I'm torn on this one about changing. From Google's standpoint is it better to change to the post name and if so should I be fearing I'm going to run into trouble with the change? Any suggestions you have would be appreciated. Thanks!!!

                    Technical SEO | Apr 17, 2017, 12:33 PM | Rich-DC
                    1
                  • jsilapas

                    Word mentioned twice in URL? Bad for SEO?

                    Is a URL like the one below going to hurt SEO for this page? /healthcare-solutions/healthcare-identity-solutions/laboratory-management.html I like the match the URL and H1s as close as possible but in this case it looks a bit funky. /healthcare-solutions/healthcare-identity-solutions/laboratory-management.html

                    Technical SEO | Apr 19, 2016, 12:38 PM | jsilapas
                    0
                  • yousayjump

                    Using Sitemap Generator - Good/Bad?

                    Hi all I recently purchased the full licence of XML Sitemap Generator (http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/standalone-google-sitemap-generator.html) but have yet used it. The idea behind this is that I can deploy the package on each large e-commerce website I build and the sitemap will be generated as often as I set it be and the search engines will also be pinged automatically to inform them of the update. No more manual XML sitemap creation for me! Now it sounds great but I do not know enough about pinging search engines with XML sitemap updates on a regular basis and if this is a good or bad thing? Can it have any detrimental effect when the sitemap is changing (potentially) every day with new URLs for products being added to the site? Any thoughts or optinions would be greatly appreciated. Kris

                    Technical SEO | May 25, 2012, 8:23 AM | yousayjump
                    0
                  • SmartWebPros

                    How to search HTML source for an entire website

                    Is there a way for me to do a "view source" for an entire website without having to right-click every page and select "view source" for each of them?

                    Technical SEO | Mar 21, 2012, 8:27 PM | SmartWebPros
                    0
                  • Archers

                    I can buy a domain from a competitor. Whats the best way to make good use of these links for my existing website

                    I can buy a domain from a competitor. Whats the best way to make good use of these links for my existing website

                    Technical SEO | Feb 1, 2012, 7:22 PM | Archers
                    0
                  • jwdesign

                    Is link cloaking bad?

                    I have a couple of affiliate gaming sites and have been cloaking the links, the reason I do this is to stop have so many external links on my sites. In the robot.txt I tell the bots not to index my cloaked links. Is this bad, or doesnt it really matter? Thanks for your help.

                    Technical SEO | Sep 23, 2011, 2:33 AM | jwdesign
                    0
                  • mosaicpro

                    What is the best website structure for SEO?

                    I've been on SEOmoz for about 1 month now and everyone says that depending on the type of business you should build up your website structure for SEO as 1st step. I have a new client click here   ( www version doesn't work)... some bugs we are fixing it now. We are almost finished with the design & layout. 2nd question have been running though my head. 1. What would the best url category for the shop be    /products/     - current url cat ex:   /products/door-handles.html 2. What would you use for the main menu as section for getting the most out of SEO. Personally i am thinking of making 2-3 main categories on the left a section where i can add content to it (3-4 paragraphs... images maybe a video).So the main page focuses on the domain name more and the rest of the sections would focus on specific keywords, this why I avoid cannibalization. Main keyword target is "door handles" Any suggestions would be appreciated.

                    Technical SEO | Jul 5, 2011, 10:56 PM | mosaicpro
                    0
                  • derderko

                    Schema for Price Comparison Services - Good or Bad?

                    Hey guys, I was just wondering what the whole schema.org markup means for people that run search engines (i.e. for a niche, certain products) or price comparison engines in general. The intend behind schema.org was to help the engines better understand the pages content. Well, I guess such services don't necessarily want Google to understand that they're just another search engine (and thus might get thrown out of the index for polluting it with search result pages). I see two possible scenarios: either not implement them or implement them in a way that makes the site not look like an aggregator, i.e. by only marking up certain products with unique text. Any thoughts? Does the SEOmoz team has any advice on that? Best,
                    schuon

                    Technical SEO | Jun 20, 2011, 2:33 AM | derderko
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.