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.
How good is a backlink that's in the footer
-
Hello,
The strongest site in our industry (according to domain authority and excluding wikipedia) said that they would put a sitewide link to us in their footer. We're good friends with them.
It would be right next to the copyright.
Our site is nlpca (dot) com
The partner site is nlpu (dot) com
The link will say something like "More NLP Training" with the "NLP" as the link. We're targeting the keyword "NLP"
How much will this move us up for the keyword "NLP"? Right now we're on the 3rd page for that term.
I also want to make sure that it's a white hat move.
Thanks!
-
Frankly, sitewide links offer very little value these days to your overall link-profile. The engines simply don't like them as in a lot of cases they scream manipulation.
You might also be interested to know that according to the folks who contributed to the SEOMoz Ranking Factors, the vast majority said that sitewide links would devalue your overall metrics with varying degrees of severity.
Honestly, I'd try to negotiate a better placement and switch tact.
Best,
Anthony -
Ryan,
I value your opinion and Anthony's too.
I will relay the information to my client.
-
Thank you Anthony,
I've had luck with this in the past since it's sitewide.
but I value the SEOMoz metrics.
Any further information you can provide would be great.
-
Hi Bob.
When you receive a link, there are several ways to weigh it's value. Mainly there is the direct value of users who will see the link and click on it to drive traffic to your site. A second consideration is how the link will help you improve search engine rankings.
In this case, you already have a link from the site from their Resources page. More links from the same site wont improve your number of linking root domains, so it wont diversify your link profile in that regard. Footer links are often not seen and rarely actually used. My question to you is, how often do you think a user might see the link and click on it? I would even suggest you test the idea with your analytics.
How much will this move us up for the keyword "NLP"?
Search engine rankings can move for various reasons without your making any change. With that in mind, I don't believe receiving a footer link from this site will have any positive effect on your rankings. With that said, it can't hurt so you are welcome to obtain the link. I would rather suggest you obtain a link in one of the sidebars, or perhaps a content link in their blogs or elsewhere.
-
Hey Bob,
There are a few considerations you need to keep in mind here.
The main one is whether or not this link is going to serve you any real benefit, especially being hidden away in the footer. It's a given that a link in the footer of the site will not serve anywhere near the same value as a link embedded within relevant and high quality original content. The amount of juice it will pass will be minimal in comparison (if that's the goal here).
The search engines have cottoned on to footer links and I feel they associate them with paid links. Whether they offer any real value from an SEO stand-point is not really a debating point within the industry (for further reading read SEOMoz's 2011 Search Engine Ranking Factors). Put yourself in the shoes of a website visitor, are they going to get any major benefit from a link in the footer? Doubtful. And the SE's know this. It's super easy to identify these links and penalise them accordingly.
If I were you I would go back to your partner and try to negotiate a link with a better placement. Even an link positioned within a nice piece of quality content should offer you more benefit than a link slapped in the footer of the site.
Best,
Anthony
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
-
Blog post outreach for backlinks
Hi all, My understanding of obtaining backlinks by way of blogpost outreach is that it's best to include several outbound links to related high domain websites within blog post copy (as well as a link to the website you're marketing, obviously) such as this post https://www.scoopearth.com/why-should-you-use-royalty-free-music-for-youtube-videos/ or this one https://small-bizsense.com/how-to-create-quality-content-for-your-business/. However, I've recently read a few articles that suggest that from a human perspective only having one clear link in the copy, such as this post https://www.clichemag.com/entertainment/movies/the-benefits-of-royalty-free-cinematic-music-for-your-videos/, increases the chance of the reader visiting the site in question. I guess the thinking is that if there's only one link to be clicked on it increases the chances of click-thru, as opposed to the reader possibly clicking on another external link that's only there because of current SEO advice. So is it best to follow SEO guidelines and include several outbound links within guest blog posts, or is it better to only have the one link to your client's site (to focus the readers attention on it)?
Link Building | | JCN-SBWD0 -
How much time does it takes for a backlink to get registered in Google? My basketball anime website has been live since start of this week and Google has not registered any backlink.
So my website https://www.animedhfa.com/basketball-anime/ about basketball Anime has shown no changes in DA or backlinks. It has been 5 days perhaps since it went live.
Link Building | | ahmad74750 -
Are backlinks in the form of Footer or Sitewide links safe?
Hi There! Some of our competitors are using sitewide links in the header, footer or sidebar…is it ok to use these type of backlinks to increase overall backlinks. The site-wide links increase backlinks dramatically. Thanks Malik Zakaria
Link Building | | mzakaria0 -
Does backlinks in images equal naked backlinks?
I've discovered few backlinks in images came from websites points to my home page. What is the value of these links?
Link Building | | Eslam-yosef0 -
Backlinks from non-relevant site
There's a forum I used to participate in that allows you to include a link to your website in your signature block. I have over 500 posts in the forum so that provides a lot of backlinks to my website. However, I recently decided to remove my website link from my signature for two reasons: The forum is 95-99% dead. Hardly anyone uses it anymore. BTW, the website that houses the forum is still popular within is niche (articles, etc). Just the forum appears to be dead. The website and its forum really have no connection whatsoever to my business. I'm in a completely different niche. However, I have no idea if I've made the right decision. Will removing my signature and the backlinks hurt my site? Or will it help it since the other site really isn't related to mine? Thanks for any thoughts on this!
Link Building | | emh19690 -
Is there a relation between number of backlink and SERP?
I want to calculate that how many backlinks i need, in order to get in higher SERPs? is there a way to calculate? One is obvious that check number of backlinks of websites that are ranking in top 5 positions. But i guess it is not true any more... So please help
Link Building | | faisalnlm0 -
Should I Use a Backlink Plugin
One of my clients recently asked me if he should use a Wordpress plugin to create backlinks to his website. He mentioned WP-Syndicator as an example. I just redesigned his website and I'd like to ensure that he gets a bit more traffic than he was before. Should I suggest that he purchase/use a Wordpress backlink plugin? If so does anyone know which is the best one? Not sure if it's necessary, but here is the website I'm referring to http://intouchhome.com
Link Building | | eddie_olivas0 -
Is it ok for a web design company to have a branded footer link on their client's sites?
Now I know that in general footer links to your site from another site are bad...this is because they are very often spammy...however I like to think that Google is pretty smart and I am of the opinion that a web design company should be able to link back to their own site. Here's why: If a visitor comes across a site that they love the design of, and they want a new website built...why shouldn't they be able to click through to the web designers site? (as long as the client is happy to link to it of course) I also feel that if there are a whole bunch of high authority/pagerank websites have been designed by a web design company and they therefore have a footer link pointing to them, it's probably a pretty good sign that they're a good web designer. Is it not? In saying this I think that the link anchor text should be branded rather than keywords. For example I usually write "Web Design by Static Shift" I'm interested to hear people's thoughts. Am I being blinded by my bias? Thoughts aside, and onto the facts...what are people's experiences with footer links for a web design company. Do they help or hinder?
Link Building | | Static_Shift3