Footer anchors question
-
A few months ago, we changed the anchors in all of our websites footers to rel="nofollow". We did this so we could drop the possibility of getting hit by the penguin update. So first, we had anchors in the template of every website that read something along the lines of "web design by bluetone media". This was on every page, so we quickly changed every link in our footers to nofollows so it would show Google that we were using that space for mainly branding purposes, instead of stealing juice from clients. However, after monitoring our link analysis, we have severely dropped in domain authority, domain moztrust, domain mozrank and more. I believe this is due to the lack of followed links, so would it be best to go back and remove all of the links from the templates of our websites and just leave the dofollow links on the homepages of our websites, or just wait it out and see what happens. This crazy decline in domain authority has only recently happened, should I expect a bounce back soon?
-
Keep in mind that our metrics (including MozRank, DA, and PA) don't measure the risk of Google devaluing or penalizing your link profile. By no-following these links, your raw inbound link equity will go down, and it will impact our metrics if those links made up a large portion of your profile.
On the other hand, that doesn't mean that it's the wrong thing to do. Taken to extreme, these kinds of footer links are getting increasingly risky. Unfortunately, mitigating that risk does mean losing any positive impact of those links. It's not an easy decision, and it may be painful in the short-term, but you're betting that short-term pain against the risk of long-term catastrophe.
Whether that's the right decision for your site today is a tough call (and certainly one we can't make without details), and I'm assuming you had good reason to make it. I wouldn't worry too much about our metrics, and I'd focus instead on the impact on your actual rankings and traffic (especially traffic that converts). Don't reverse the decision too lightly, because switching back and forth can also send negative signals to Google.
-
The way I see it that a link on the footer of a client site is like you said "stealing juice from clients". It not a true citation like google really wants to see.
Read this: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2259674/Penguin-2.0-Forewarning-The-Google-Perspective-on-Links
Your clients are not currently recommending you, you are recommending yourself by putting a link in their footer. Sure you will get link juice but you also might get penalty. I would instead remove the links from the footer (not a great place for links) and instead ask them to write an honest review of you in their plan, or on a supplier page, their about us page, or some other suitable page.
-
Our rankings are starting to take a slight dip and yes, I was thinking about removing all of the links, except the homepage links and I would turn those homepage links back into dofollow links that point to our site.
Thanks for the quick responses!
-
I would keep them as do follow and just brand with your company name. Don't use any keywords such as web design. You will not be penalized for a branding anchor text of your company name, unless your company names is 'shoes' and at that point why would you need to do any seo work
-
Has your rankings dropped as well?
And when you say "so would it be best to go back and remove all of the links from the templates of our websites and just leave the dofollow links on the homepages of our websites" do you mean leave a link to bluetone media on just the homepage of your client sites and not other sites you own?
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
-
Standardising of Company Name Across The Web Question
Good Morning All There are two variations of our company name on the website. Sometimes the name is listed as "name and name" and sometimes listed as "name & name" The domain is obviously www.nameandname.co.uk I believe I am correct in saying that we would be wise to go through and standardise, using one form or the other? Secondly, my main question is would we be wise to use "name and name" as the default, as the word "and" and not the symbol "&" is in the domain itself? Many Thanks
Branding | | ruislip180 -
My question is in regards to possible conflict in creating an additional website under a new domain for our company.
Our companies, Vulcan Information Packaging and ATC both live under the domain “www.binders.com”. This is a great thing as far as us dominating in the binder industry. However, in the next 2-3 years and forward, we want to build our presence as a company who offers packaging products such as boxes, marketing kits, and other forms of packaging. Obviously, the “binders.com” brand/domain does not contribute much to this effort and can be confusing to customers visiting the site. Essentially, we want to build an additional branding for our company in the packaging industry. Keeping this in mind, we own the domain “www.vulcaninformationpackaging.com” and we are considering building a new website using this domain which contains the word “packaging”. This new site would only promote and contain packaging related products. This new website will advertise and direct traffic to our company Vulcan Information Packaging, which is the same company “binders.com” directs traffic to. So my question is to determine whether doing this might be a practice that Google and other search engines might frown upon. I tend to think it will be fine because we will be promoting and driving traffic for non-binder products where as, binders.com is heavily in binder related products. thank you, Dominic Zaidan
Branding | | dzaidan0 -
Duplicate Content Question
I have a question about duplicate content. We have our mission statement on our home page, a few paragraphs. When I searched Copyscape the only pages that came back were sites like Google Plus, Manta, Linkedin, AngieLists ect. All of them have the same exact copy. Would this be something that is hurting us for duplicate content??
Branding | | chuck-layton
It is our mission statement so we kind of want to be the same across those sites. Any input would be great. Thanks, Scott0 -
Subject: Brand anchor text distribution. Does the HP url classify as brand anchor?
Hi guys, I just wanted to know what your take is on this and whether anyone knows if google has published any info on this. I am wanting to analyse a fairly large backlink profile. The idea is to discover how far it correlates alongside recent SERPS ranking data (based on anchor text distribution) information that has been published across the web. There is so much data to categorise and segment. This is due to overlaps in categorisation, (which is possibly a good thing as it appears more natural) though I often it difficult to decide which goes where. My question today relates to brand anchor text - in determining the % of overall brand distribution for a backlink profile - Which out of the below do you think rings true? 1.) Should I be considering the homepage url anchor text as a branded link anchor? 2.) Should the brand % just be 'pure brand' anchor text? 3.) Should it contain partial brand + KWD data? 4.) Should it comprise of all of the above elements? 5.) Should I divvy up / segment partial brand, pure brand, brand + kwd, citations etc into new sub categories and see how this individual data correlates to current ranking factors in the SERPS? (Not sure if there is any recent published data in this amount of detail) Anyway, I just wondered what you guys thought about this in the eyes of Google., and also to find out how you go about classifying and segmenting backlink profile data. Thanks for now
Branding | | Turkey0 -
Questions about Press Releases
Are sites such as Marketwire, PRWeb, PRnewswire, BusinessWire, e-Releases and PitchEngine good for editorial back links? Also, if I have a press release on PRWeb, for example, can I have the EXACT same one on Martketwire, etc or do I need to worry about duplicate content?
Branding | | tutugirl0 -
Anchor Text
1) What anchor text should be used? For instance, German Shepherd figurines from "domain name" ? Should the link go the the home page of the "domain name: or the page about German Shepherds? Should the clickable link be German Shepherd figurines or the "domain name" home page ? 4)should the clickable link be the "domain name" page name leading to the German Shepherd page? Thanks Mike
Branding | | TeamLogo0 -
Is adding SEO links within Clients Footer good?
With the Google Panda update craving quality, relevant content is it acceptable to place a targeted keyword within other customers websites such as " SEO in ......" ????? Cheers
Branding | | samr2170 -
Acquired Premium Domain, question about Brand name change related to SEO
We recently acquired a premium domain name The domain we were operating on before had a lot of SEO done on it, as well as branding campaigns. Now that we have the premium domain, would it be wise to start doing SEO on the premium domain and discontinue old domain promotions if we plan on changing the brand name? to clear up any confusion, we own for example AAAFurnitureStore.com we acquired the premium domain: AAAFurniture.com should we redirect AAAFurnitureStore.com -> AAAFurniture.com or since we already have established presence/brand do opposite and redirect AAAFurniture.com -> AAAFurnitureStore.com and keep the brand name same as "AAA Furniture Store"?
Branding | | lafurniturestore0