'Powered by...' anchor text links
-
Hi Mozzers!
We're a web design and dev agency in Kent, UK who don't really provide SEO services (tend to outsource and focus on our core competencies!)
Have never really bothered putting 'Powered by...' or 'built by...' anchor text links at the foot of our client sites that link back to ours. Obvs we have a huge back catalogue of opportunities to add this to various sites which, if clients agree of course, would push our backlinks above our key competitors overnight (according to OSE).
Good idea or Spammy/back hattie???
Cheers guys.
-
Thanks Rebecca, frustrating though as our competitor is ranking top for 'web development' local searches and having run OSE on their site the only reason is by adding anchor links to sites they've developed. This is generating them dozens of new enquiries pcm compared to our zero!
-
I agree.
-
Bad idea. I would not do this kind of footer link without a rel=nofollow, ever. Google has been known to target footer links like these for unnatural link building practices. (Check out this article by Barry Schwartz from a couple years back.) Just because something has been a "standard practice" for a long time doesn't mean it's white hat today.
Edited to add:
By the way, the fact that you're talking about how to add them slowly enough to stay under Google's radar should be enough to tell you that what you're planning may not be on the up and up. -
Thanks Umar, we've got about 100 RDs that we can add our link to which will give us about 10,000 backlinks. Was going to add about at a rate of about 20 RDs per week. Seem reasonable to you?
-
Hey,
I agree lots of agencies are following this practice but the question stated "we have a huge back catalogue of opportunities". So, it's not a good idea to get the tons of links on these phrases in a short time. That's why I said, it "might" get caught into a spammy practice.
Plus, if you have the opportunity to get some decent links, it's better to have them on your branded term to give away a strong brand signal to google.
What do you think?
-
Hi Umar,
Just wondering, how it is going to be Spammy ? Hyperlinking keywords in footer is a regular practise all Webdesign & SEO company do. I dont think it will be termed spammy.
-
Hey Steve,
I'm afraid it might be caught into Spammy practice because of the latest penguin updates. You should get the links from these sources after all you deserves them but just change the approach a bit.
Rather getting links on "Powered by", "built by" or "developed by", you should try to get the links on your branded term. Something like "Developed by Moz".
Google has no objection, if you're getting links on your branded term and your profile will gonna look more authoritative and natural.
Hope this helps!
Have a rocking Sunday!
Umar
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
-
Second anchor text on page. Does it count?
Back in 2008 there was "proof" that the anchor text of a second link on a page would not be counted for the anchor text.
Link Building | | Stramark
In the MOZ starter guide it is still advocated: https://moz.com/learn/seo/anchor-text BUT in 2014 it was reported on searchengine land:
http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-one-page-two-links-page-counted-first-link-192718
That the second link might be counted. Direct link to the matt cuts video from 28 may 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AsLWIuNNMU (Even in 2010 there where already some different opinions and work arounds.
https://moz.com/blog/the-first-link-counts-rule-and-the-hash-sign
https://moz.com/ugc/3-ways-to-avoid-the-first-link-counts-rule (2011) Question: did anyone recently test this recently? The deeper questions are:
1:is the LINK value counted if you have more that one link on a page to another page?
2: is the Anchor text counted if you have more than one anchortext to another page? The most interresting i have is that i have a menu from which i link to my important pages. Does it help to put extra links in the content to specific pages?1 -
Self linking - loss of link juice?
There are 10 links on page that point to this page where they exist (link to the page itself). Does it influence on ranking? And what's happening to link juice? How does it spread? Is there any loss of it?
Link Building | | templatemonster0 -
Help! Someone's inserted my link in the footer of another site!
There's a site in my industry where (I'm guessing on flawed SEO advice) all of their pages contain footer links to rival sites – with each page containing a different set of links. One page has a link to my site, which I've just found out from GWT as the link now produces a 404.
Link Building | | Jeepster
Should I
a) ignore it?
b) ask them to replace it with a live link from my site (their site's highly relevant to mine)? or
c) ask them to remove it altogether as no-one wants footer links?0 -
How much time does it take for the links to be forwarded to redirected link?
Hi there,
Link Building | | MoeezLodhi
Thank you for taking out some time for this question; I have changed the permalinks last week for a website.. I forgot to redirect old permalinks to the new one.. So I did 301 redirection, it has been 4-5 days since I did that but the links are not forwarded to the new Permalink so far.
How much time should I wait for the links to be forwarded to the new permalinks? Secondly, I am sure I have done the 301 redirect correctly, as when I go to the old url / permalink it directs me to the new permalink. So I am sure 301 is done correctly. Do I need to submit the sitemap again?0 -
Links from PRWeb press release violate Google's quality guidelines?
My site has had a manual action performed on it by Google indicating that I have inbound links that fall outside of their quality guidelines. I did my own research, found what I thought was the issue, had the links removed and requested reconsideration. Google's response surprised me in that they highlighted two specific pages with links that were the direct result of valid press releases and a publisher picking up our release off a wire service. Has anyone else seen this occur? Anyone had a case successfully reconsidered? I realize that I don't need to do anything at all as the manual action is in effect and will stay that way, discounting those links, but I would rather a) not have any manual action against my site and b) know for the future so this doesn't happen again. Also, is this applicable for guest blog posts, which effectively create the same type of backlinks? Thanks
Link Building | | barberm1 -
SEOmoz's ranking of links on competitor question..
I am Perplexed about SEOmoz crawl for new links on a competitors website. When I looked at a company who received very high ranks for the links...on SEOMoz...such as. 95, 96, 97 etc..... I couldn't figure out how they ranked so high. One company bought 20 links for a couple hundred dollars and all of them were ranked very high on SEOmoz but when I used the page rank tool on them individually they were either "0" or "1" and none were over a 2. I was debating submitting for those since I am just starting out and wanted to get our name listed in the internet world. Are the high rankings by SEOmoz related to something else? Would I be better off buying a listing in some of the premium directories instead. Like Yahoo or BBB or Manta. ( After I get my site optimized first) Thank you, Greg
Link Building | | Boodreaux0 -
Inbound links vs. internal links
Which scenario does more to help SEO - A) An inbound link from a low traffic/low page rank site to my site B) An internal link where one page of my site links to another page on my site
Link Building | | DVanSchepen0 -
What's your favorite link building tactic?
What's your favorite 100% white hat link building tactic? Well, maybe you don't want to reveal your favorite...just a good one...
Link Building | | AdamThompson0