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.
Agency footer link, do we keep it ?
-
Hello !
I was wondering if it's still a good idea to let a do-follow link on the bottom of agency released websites.
Because they obvisouly come from different websites with no link with a web marketing agency.
- Do we have to keep them in the footer in no-follow ?
- If we do so, how to get some link juice from the different websites ?
It sounds a bit stupid but one of my partners went from PR7 to PR5 recently. I guess Penguin 2.0 did not like all its links from its customers' website.
Tks a lot !
-
Mum ... I never really looked this as a problem until the last Google updates.
So if I got it properly:
- Keeping one link on the home may not hurt my website (now)
- Keeping the footer link on all website would be the last thing to do
- Keeping the link in nofollow can bring me some new customers (now) and penalize my site soon
I think I'm going for the nofollow option now.
What do you think ?
-
Short answers: Don't do it.
Chris did a great job at explaining why as well.
Having said that, if the agency is a highly respected an ethical agency, then you could consider it, but nine out of 10 times, they won't be, so I'd advise removing the links.
-
There was an interesting discussion related to this sometime back on Google Groups. https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/webmasters/pX0sI1KOnTM/60MmAnGN5fsJ
The conclusion I would say is that you can link from the client websites, but make sure you do not stuff keywords in the anchor text. As long as someone is linking with the brand name, it shouldn't have any issues.
-
While those footer links back to the agency that created the website used to be commonplace and sought after, it's shaky ground today--even just one or two no-followed links from a client's site could get you in trouble--in the future.
Today, a followed link or two from the footer of a client's home page and another one from some an interior page (each link having different, non-exact match anchor text) may still provide your site some advantage--and that's the problem. Using those links to your advantage may help your authority in the present but you shouldn't be surprised if that authority is stripped at some point in the future. You know what it looks like when authority is stripped? A penalty.
If you are still getting a followed footer link or two from each of your clients, that shouldn't be your only means of building authority--it should be a supplemental means. You really need to work just as hard as any other site in any other industry to build editorial links back to your site in order that you not suffer an authority adjustment down the road.
The best practice is to nofollow those links in order to prevent them from giving you problems in the future.
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
-
Footer menu links: Header tags or list items?
Hi, I would like to know header tags (h5 or h6) or list items ( ) works better for footer menu links for the best linking structure. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
If my article is reposted on another blog, using re=canonical, does that count as a link back?
Hey all! My company blog is interested in letting another blog repost our article. We would ask them to use "re-canonical" in the mark-up to avoid Google digging through "duplicate" info out there. I was wondering, if the other site does use the "re=canonical", will that appear as a backlink or no? I understand that metrics will flow back to my original URL and not the canonical one, but I am wondering if the repost will additionally show as a backlink. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | cmguidry0 -
Ecommerce SEO: Is it bad to link to product/category pages directly from content pages?
Hi ! In Moz' Whiteboard friday video Headline Writing and Title Tag SEO in a Clickbait World, Rand is talking about (among other things) best practices related to linking between search, clickbait and conversion pages. For a client of ours, a cosmetics and make-up retailer, we are planning to build content pages around related keywords, for example video, pictures and text about make-up and fashion in order to best target and capture search traffic related to make-up that is prevalent earlier in the costumer journey. Among other things, we plan to use these content pages to link directly to some of the products. For example a content piece about how to achieve full lashes will to link to particular mascaras and/or the mascara category) Things is, in the Whiteboard video Rand Says:
Algorithm Updates | | Inevo
_"..So your click-bait piece, a lot of times with click-bait pieces they're going to perform worse if you go over and try and link directly to your conversion page, because it looks like you're trying to sell people something. That's not what plays on Facebook, on Twitter, on social media in general. What plays is, "Hey, this is just entertainment, and I can just visit this piece and it's fun and funny and interesting." _ Does this mean linking directly to products pages (or category pages) from content pages is bad? Will Google think that, since we are also trying to sell something with the same piece of content, we do not deserve to rank that well on the content, and won't be considered that relevant for a search query where people are looking for make-up tips and make-up guides? Also.. is there any difference between linking from content to categories vs. products? ..I mean, a category page is not a conversion page the same way a products page is. Looking forward to your answers 🙂0 -
Has anyone used Capterra and will I get penalized for paid links?
Hello - I'm contemplating buying a directory listing on the software promotion website http://www.capterra.com/ . It's a site that gets quite a bit of traffic for people searching for software products and I was interested in promoting my software product there, but I don't want to ruin our very good standing with Google at this time if Google deems Capterra as selling paid links. I'm not interested in this for links but instead as a good source of referral traffic for my software site. If anyone has used Capterra or has advice on whether Capterra might injure my SERP rankings, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Jeff
Algorithm Updates | | DenverDude0070 -
How to content marketing: Should my blog posts link to my sales page?
Hi, I've been doing a weekly blog making sure that each blog post contains my money keywords in the text, sometimes in h2 tags etc. My blog posts never contain any links to my actual sales page. Should I link each blog post to my sale page or is it overdoing it? Will internal linking of all my blog posts to my sales page will improve its page authority or have any SEO benefits? What about using exact match anchor text on these internal links? I couldn't find any resource online about this matter. Thank you for your opinion and help! -Marc
Algorithm Updates | | marcandre0 -
Excessive internal links. Should I remove the footer links?
Hi guys, I have an ecommerce site selling eco-friendly items online. I ran some on-page optimisation reports from SEOMoz PRO and discovered that I have at least 120 internal links per page. 32 of these are in the footer, designed in part to aid user navigation but perhaps also to have a positive impact on SERPs and SEO in general for the ecommerce site. Will removing these links be beneficial to my search engine rankings, as I will have less than 100 internal links per page? Or is it a major change which may be dangerous for my site rankings? Please help as I'm not sure about this! I've attached an image of the footer links below. I won't be removing the Facebook/Twitter links, just the 3 columns on the left. Thank you, Pravin MAvLe.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | goforgreen0 -
How do you block incoming links to your site?
With the new update to google focusing on link spam and multiple anchor text ? If you have incoming links that you would like to block or make no follow?
Algorithm Updates | | HelpingHandNetwork1 -
Youtube dofollow link to web site
Is there still a dofollow link back from a youtube channel to your web site? I filled in the site url in the profile, which in my understanding used to be the single dofollow link back to your web site. However, when I view the page source for the youtube channel it shows up as a nofollow link. Also, in OSE the link does not appear. Has this changed or am I just not doing this correctly?
Algorithm Updates | | uwaim20120