Should You Link Back from Client's Website?
-
We had a discussion in the office today, about if it can help or hurt you to link back to your site from one that you optimize, host, or manage.
A few ideas that were mentioned:
HURT:
1. The website is not directly related to your niche, therefore Google will treat it as a link exchange or spammy link.
2. Links back to you are often not surrounded by related text about your services, and looks out of place to users and Search Engines.HELP:
1. On good (higher PR, reputable domain) domains, a link back can add authority, even if the site is not directly related to your services.
2. Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose.So, what do you think? Test results would be appreciated, as we are trying to get real data. Benefits and cons if you have an opinion.
-
Hi everyone
We have read through all these comments, but still not sure what to do about this. We do church web design, and our link would be on church websites. That seems relevant to me.
These responses go back to 2014. Is there any current advice or information on this topic?
Thanks:-)
-
As someone who used to work at a company on the Recommended list (and who was in charge of the Contact form) - we did get leads. They were about 80% appropriate for the business model, although a lot were too small or wanting short-term projects (my agency generally took on corporate-level accounts for long periods of time). I would say that this sort of linking is different to just linking to clients, e.g. if we then went on to link to an insurance company that came to us through a Moz Recommended referral. But if your SEO company partners with a PPC agency or design firm, provides some services to the other and sends out a relevant link, that seems a little more relevant.
On the other hand, I hate these discussions about what we're "allowed" to link to
-
Under No Circumstances do I see this to be something you should do. I often advise clients to get any link which isn't giving value to the user off the site ASAP.
Often that includes "Site created by ..." Lowest of the low I'm afraid.
So that's a No from me!
-
People who come to Moz are in the same niche as the recommended companies. It'd be way different if I had the same link at the bottom of my site that's about model battleships.
-
I'd think -- or hope! -- that Google Penguin or something else would stop that result at some point.
-
I hear a potential YouMoz post?
Footer links may not refer a lot of valuable traffic. But other types of pages could. For example: I'm sure the businesses that are on Moz's recommended list get leads. Pages with similar types of (no-follow) links could do the same (rather than footer links).
-
Only robots who don't buy anything.
-
To be honest, I doubt anyone really gets much referral business from footer links no follow or not. It clearly a way of getting authority high pr links for free.
-
I'd love to see a case study from a firm talking about the amount of traffic they get from these links, and if it turns into any leads or sales for them.
-
Ive seen a company in Glasgow that does this to the extreme. In fact they rank for "seo glasgow" and their link profile is made up of all footer links. seo by seo glasgow and they rank well. web design by "web design glasgow" etc
-
Yes, that is better.... but you will only be able to do it on websites that tolerate unpaid advertising.
-
Thumbed-up for being what I would do!
-
What about something like : "Site design By Company Link" that is no-follow? That way you can get direct traffic but doesnt pass link juice?
-
With owner permission "having your name on the site in unlinked text" seems the best to do.
I remember the penalty story of 'Web Design Yorkshire by Pinpoint Designs' - http://moz.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-google-penalty-removal
<greyhat>Need to vary anchor text if you do it :).</greyhat>
-
CNN, Tribune, and other big companies often have both in-house people and agencies. I know people who are at (or were at) both CNN and the Tribune who are in-house SEOs who work with contracted agencies.
-
I would advise against it for one simple reason: You would be directly violating Google's guidelines and setting both you and your clients up for potential penalties.
Google states: Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.
If you actively build a do-follow link on another site for the purposes of affecting search results, then you are doing exactly this.
-
CNN, WJS, Today, and ESPN have their own in-house team of developers and designers. i think that's not a good example.
Having a link to your website from a client website as you say yes is a good advertising as a web developer agency or hosting company. they are outsourcing services which means to them less head ache and saving money because they don't have to buy a server or have a full time in-house developer and SEO specialist which from my point will be a fair trade of having the companies link on their website as well as sometimes the agencies put their clients links on their websites as success stories or current customers.
-
Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose.
My answer on this has nothing to do with SEO.
It has to do with where I believe the role of a service provider is supposed to begin and end.
I personally think that SEOs linking back to their own sites from a client site is low form. The SEO is supposed to be helping the client not siphoning his power. You could accomplish that visibility by simply having your name on the site in unlinked text. Adding a link is unnecessary and greedy.
When I see those links on other sites, I do find it to be useful information. I know who I would not hire.
Honestly, if an SEO or designer or hosting provider wanted to put a link on my site I would tell him "no" nicely. If they argued or pressed for it my consideration of his company would be concluded. The link is not necessary for attribution.
If an SEO or hosting company wanted to have their name at the bottom of my site without the link I would tell them how much it would cost to advertise there. The value of that advertising would probably exceed the value of the service that they provided.
If you go to a big brand site such as CNN, WSJ, Today, ESPN, you don't see links to SEOs, hosting or designers. They are not being billboards for their service providers.
My displeasure on this is extremely strong against SEOs and hosting providers. For designers I can understand why they ask. For a designer, if I am exceedingly pleased with what they have done I might list them on the "about us" page, where I mention a few people who have contributed to the content of the site. Why the designer? Because they improved what people see and that includes matching the design to my content or complimenting it.
I have different views when it comes to photographs, graphics, videos. I always name the creator of those content assets and often link to their website in the caption. Why? Because they are a content source and my visitors might want to see more of their work. It is similar to a reference link on a Wikipedia article. Those links are useful to the visitors. Even if I paid them a license fee, I mention them and usually link to them (the only exception is with a thumbnail, but that thumbnail always links to an article where their photo is prominent and with attribution and usually a link). I give them attribution because I want to help them. They usually have sites that are less visible than mine. And I want them to feel that the got back more than they gave.
My site is not about SEO or about hosting or design. So a link to those sites is not useful to my visitor, so it really should not be there.
-
We never place a link without the site owners permission.
-
Just to be clear, are you going to ask for the client's permission first?
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
-
Website in capital letters
Hello, Is website in capital letters affect SEO ?? or we can apply with it ?? please help thnx in advance..!!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | iepl20040 -
Do I lose link juice if I have a https site and someone links to me using http instead?
We have recently launched a https site which is getting some organic links some of which are using https and some are using http. Am I losing link juice on the ones linked using http even though I am redirecting or does Google view them the same way? As most people still use http naturally will it look strange to google if I contact anyone who has given us a link and ask them to change to https?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Lisa-Devins0 -
Why There is No link Data Available in my Webmaster Tools even the site has lots of links and webmastert tools account setup properly
i have few account in my webmaster tools that are not showing any link data even the has lots of links. i checked the setup and its everything is good. is some one tell me why there is no data coming through? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | OnlineAssetPartners1 -
Lots of websites copied my original content from my own website, what should I do?
1. Should I ask them to remove and replace the content with their unique and original content? 2. Should I ask them to link to the URL where the original content is located? 3. Should I use a tool to easily track these "copycat" sites and automatically add links from their site to my site? Thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | esiow20130 -
Hackers are selling fake 'Likes' on FB, Instragram
An interesting article on how to get social media buzz: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/16/fake-instagram-likes_n_3769247.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ChristopherGlaeser0 -
Opinions sought on outbound Links page.
Hello Forum, I'm about the remove my outbound Links page at: http://www.pictureframe.com.au/---obs--picture-frames-links.html I think that Google could be assessing this page as a link scheme, ie: I-link-you-if-you-link me. I haven't received any messages from Google about this but I think the page may be devaluing my site. What do you guys~gals think? Thank you for any and all feedback Paul the Picture Framer
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Picframer0 -
Advice on links after Penguin hit
Firstly we have no warnings or messages in WMT. We have racked up thousands of anchor text urls. Our fault, we didnt nofollow and also some of our many cms sites replicated the links sitewide to the tune of 20,000 links. I`m in the process of removing the code which causes this problem in most of the culprit sites but how long will it take roughly for a crawl to recalculate the links? In my WMT it still shows the links increasing but I think this is retrospective data. However, after this crawl we should see a more relevant link count. We also provide some web software which has been used by many sites. Google may consider our followed anchor text violating spam rules. So I ask, if we were to change the link text to our url only and add nofollow, will this improve the spam issue? We could have as many as 4,000 links per website, as it is a calendar function and list all dates into the future.......and we would like to retain a link to our website of course for marketing purposes. What we dont want is sitewide link spam again. Some of our other links are low quality, some are okay. However, we have lost rankings, probably due to low quality links and overuse of anchor text.. Is this the case the Google has just devalued the links algorythmically or is there an actual penalty to make the rankings drop? As we have no warnings in WMT, I feel there isnt the need to remove the lower quality links and in most cases we havent control over the link placements. We should just rectify that we have a better future linking profile? If we have to remove spam links, then that can only be a good reason to cause negative seo?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | xtopher660 -
Good link networks?
Hey Mozzers, quick question about link networks. I've identified quite a few, like these: Build My Rank Unique Article Wizard Authority Link Network Article Ranks EZ Article Link Socialadr Linkvana SEO LinkVine Does anyone have experience using any of these? The basic premise is they own or their members own tons of different blogs. You write an article, give it to them, they publish it one one of those blogs. You include a link in your article. Done. They charge a monthly fee to use and all that, so is it worth it? Anyone had any success with them? Finding mixed things on forums online, and since many of their websites like awfully spammy, wanted to poll the Mozzers and get your thoughts.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DanDeceuster0