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.
Footer Links And Link Juice
-
I'm starting to learn about link juice and notice in GWMT > Traffic > Internal Links, that the list is in this order by the links counted on each page. Some are in the footer and some are in the header, with some being more important than others commercially i.e. /register
/privacy
/terms
/search
/sitemap
/disclaimer
/blog
/register
So I am wondering if I should add a 'no-follow' attribute to the footer links i.e. privacy, terms, disclaimer and leave the others as they are? Does this help retain link juice on each page where the links appear? Or am I missing the point all together?
This is my website: http://goo.gl/CN0e5
-
there are ways around it though such as obfuscated javascript linking and other methods of making a link unrecognized as a link
-
Fair point about disrupting the flow, I will leave the footer links as they are.
Some of the links are at the top of the page with Register being a call to action.
Thx.
-
Hmmmm.... a search form has been on my mind as I would track what people enter and then include them in my keyword research. Top tip!!
-
Thanks for the link, this video answered a few of my niggles about footer links!
-
Just to add to the consensus (although credit goes to multiple people on the thread) - PR-sculpting with nofollow on internal links no longer works, and it can be counter-productive. If these links are needed for users, don't worry about them, and don't disrupt PR flow through your site. Ultimately, you're only talking about a few pages, and @sprynewmedia is right - Google probably discounts footer links even internally (although we may no good way to measure this).
Be careful with links like "register", though, because sometimes they spin off URL variations, and you don't want those all indexed. In that case, you'd probably want to NOINDEX the target page - it just doesn't have any search value. I'm not seeing that link in your footer, though, so I'm not clear on what it does. I see this a lot with "login" links.
-
A no-follow, in terms of juice, would actually hurt your goals as the link still gets allocated the juice portion but it doesn't flow through. **Each no-follow link will siphon off a little juice. **
See http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96569
The effects of navigational links are diminished somewhat as Google treats them differently compared to content links. To help solidify this, surround the footer with
<nav></nav>
tags.
Review: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links #5
Generally, remove any site wide links that aren't always needed and place them on page where users would like the details. For instance, use a search form instead of a link to the search page.
-
No this won't work. it's called pagerank sculpting and used to work but Google fixed that a couple of years ago by making the nofollow counts as a link and instead all you are doing is throwing away your page juice.
-
Hi there,
John Doherty did a really good whiteboard friday on this last year:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/smarter-internal-linking-whiteboard-friday
-
You could add a noindex if you think the privacy and disclaimer pages, etc, are not bringing any SEO value. Nofollow would block search engines from even spidering them. But a noindex would just stop it from showing up as an entrance/landing page in the SERPs.
I wouldn't say that it helps "retain link juice", but it might help you to show the search engines what your most important pages are.
An alternative would be to perhaps only link to some of those pages from your home page and not from every single page. Are there any pages that you think would be appropriate NOT to link to all those pages? If so, perhaps you can write a conditional statement in your code to only show those links on some pages and not others.
Scott O.
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
-
When conducting a link building strategy does it matter the country the link is from?
We are a UK business and if we have links mostly from US based blogs and websites does this penalise us. The links are from relevant websites and topics. Should we be focusing on .co.uk sites
Link Building | Dec 24, 2019, 1:43 PM | Caffeine_Marketing1 -
Do branded footer links hurt me?
I run a small seo company. We work uber white hat. We are small with only 4 of us but we have a good client base with great results. My question is related to my own websites because they are the only sites in which I practice this technique. I just watched the white board Friday about good vs bad link building. In the bad link building it mentioned never to externally link in the footer. Is this an all around statement? For instance, every new site we make we always put links in the footer of our clients. Usually says something like "Developed by Stodzy Internet marketing Almost all the web design companies I work with do the same thing. Is this going to help me or hurt me?
Link Building | Nov 7, 2014, 8:35 PM | SwanJob2 -
Do footer links pass less link juice?
One of my best inbound links for PA and DA happens to be a footer link, curious if it's less valuable or has any value at all.
Link Building | Jun 26, 2013, 2:50 PM | Theskimonster0 -
A link with "return false"- OSE sees as a No Followed Link
Hello, I couldn't find a clear answer to the impact on SEO for a link written in this way: [" class="expert_info" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">](w</span>ww.yourwebsite.com<span style=) [Does the "return false" act as a "no follow"? I came across this in our link data in Open Site Explorer which lists these links all as "no follows." However, an engineer I spoke to said that it shouldn't impact search engine behavior. Any ideas? Thank you in advance! -Sarah K.](w</span>ww.yourwebsite.com<span style=)
Link Building | Feb 27, 2013, 2:30 AM | OneMedical0 -
Link Detox and Link Removal
I have a question about which links to remove after running a link detox from Link Research Tools. First a little back story. I had had an SEO company link building for one of the websites I own. But I have recently stopped working with them. In the last month my rankings have near dropped off the charts. I have just recently gotten access to Google webmaster tools and noticed an unnatural link warning from back in March. So yesterday I ran link detox and it reported 19 toxic links, 120 suspicious links, and 24 healthy links. It's rather obvious that I should remove all of the toxic links. They all from sites that have been deindexed by google. But my question is a about the suspicious links. What should my criteria be for removing them? Am I better off removing them all and leaving my site with only 24 healthy links or should I personally comb through them and remove only the worst of the worst so that I leave my site with a few more links? I'd really like to get the site ready to resubmit to google as soon as I can. Thoughts? yyCOf.png
Link Building | Nov 19, 2018, 8:31 PM | CobraJones950 -
Does Link Juice Flow From Banner Ads.
Hi Guys I have been checking out a couple of my competitors and noticed that in site explorer there were sites that were passing what I would consider strong amounts of link juice for their banner adverts. I checked the anchor text which was always (Img ALT) Also the links are follow and placed on the home page too. So I wondered how google view this Im sure adverts were supposed to be no follow and if so then do you think there is a benefit from me taking one of these banner adverts to increase the level of link juice passing to my site.
Link Building | May 16, 2012, 9:16 PM | RankStealer0 -
Text Link vs image link?
Which passes most link juice a text link or an image with the correct 'alt' attribute? Do the pass the same amount or is one more valuable than the other?
Link Building | Mar 28, 2012, 10:27 PM | SamCUK0 -
How long does it take for link juice to pass
If I were to receive a follow link from a blogger with DA 40 PA 40 today, relevant anchor text linking to correct page, etc., how long do you consider it takes until maximum SEO effect is achieved? Thanks
Link Building | Jul 10, 2011, 8:51 AM | seanmccauley0