Is it too late to change an IP from the linking c-block?
-
My main web development company is linked to many of our clients and our clients link back to us using footer links back. We obviously have a high volume of c-block relations.
If I change my main site's location to a different server will it make any difference or is it too late?
-
Very nicely put
-
Hi sanchez1960
Ryan is absolutely correct.
There are many more ways for Google to recognize the relationship between sites - especially given that the aim is for Googlebot to crawl every page you want accessible on each site. The classic tie between sites is the use of commonly named css files.
I get a sense that your question comes from a concern that the footer links may bring some negative effect upon your site. This is unlikely if you are simply placing a single link in the page footer. Spamming hundreds of links with exact match anchor text in the footer might be a different matter!
As Ryan explained, the reality is that the links just won't provide extra "juice" for your domain.
Funnily enough, we web designers were placing footer links long before the world at large ever heard the terms "SEO" or "link juice". Obviously the reason is that they allow site visitors who are impressed by our work to find out more about us and perhaps engage us to work for them
In my view, this is still a good idea and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact, I would rather a click to our site from a prospective customer who already loves our work than a click from a vaguely interested "SERP browser" any day.
If Google is smart enough to recognize the links between sites, it is also smart enough to know that linking back to a web designer's site makes good marketing sense. After all, it was not us who decided to make links the basic currency of web rankings
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
There is a lot of speculation regarding how Google evaluates links and determines relationships between a linking site and its target. If you are a web developer and your clients are hosted on one of your servers, I would not make any effort to hide the relationship.
The prevailing thought amongst SEOs is Google understands IPs and therefore its important to not only change the IP address, but to ensure the new IP uses a different C block. This concept is years old and was employed as a first-step measure when Google first tackled the issue of site owners who were manipulating links. I strongly believe Google evolved past the linking C-block idea a long time ago.
Google is a very intelligent and experienced company when it comes to evaluating manipulative links. Here are a few examples of how Google can still determine a relationship exists despite varying your C-block:
-
when all your clients are hosted on the same server, and they all provide links to your site, the relationship is pretty obvious.
-
Google can ignore the IP addresses entirely and examine the nameservers. Many site owners use "SEO hosting" where they have one server with various IPs. The site owner specifically requests their IPs to use various C-blocks thinking Google wont recognize they are all using the same nameserver.
-
there are numerous other ways Google can relate sites. A specific combination of software is one example. Perhaps all the sites you develop are Joomla 1.7 with a certain combination of extensions. Perhaps you install a specific custom-created script or widget.
The bottom line is footer links are the least valuable type of link. You can expect Google to recognize the link and offer it some minimal value. There is not likely any significant improvement to the link's value by varying the IP. If you desire more traffic I would suggest creating code to solve a problem no one else has tackled. You can then earn authentic links from a variety of sources and be far ahead of the game.
-
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
-
Ecommerce web design read more toggle vs menu link on home page and product pages
Hello, We have an Ecommerce store. We have a lot of content on the home page and product pages and we are going back and forth between which one to use between a toggle "Read More" "Show Less" toggle for each section and a anchor linked menu. We have long product pages We're thinking a read more toggle is more appropriate for category descriptions so that they can go at the top of the category and not take up space. But the read more toggle with lots of content scrolls the page down and doesn't scroll it back up when you hit "show less" We're leaning towards a linked menu for the home pages and product pages for this reason, but an accordion type set of toggles would look nicer. What do you recommend, and how have you set up your read more toggles if they have lots of info so that they are not confusing? Are there other options? ' Not looking for code (I can do that) I'm looking for ideas on the cleanest home page, category pages, and product pages when they have tons and tons of textual content. Wanting to trim it up and make it look compact and neat! Thanks!
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
Does anyone know of an easy way to create jump links in WordPress without having to hardcode it into the HTML?
I am using Genesis Framework with the New Pro child theme on my site called Learn Internet Grow and when I create long articles I like to have a menu so readers can jump to a specific section. I wonder if there is a best practice for how to create jump links quickly without having to switch between the code editor and the post editor. There are a bunch of plugins but I am wary of adding more. Maybe if someone can tell me about one they had a good experience with. Ideally, a resource that shows you how to create a custom plugin for this or a non-plugin way to alter the framework to enable easy jump linking.
Web Design | | LearnInternetGrow0 -
Website Home page suddenly disappeared after changing Hosting
HI All, My site was ranking very well and was in 1st page of google for most of my keywords. Last week we did some update to the site and moved it to new hosting and from then onwards I dont see my site home page in Google ranking . My Website Name is : royalevents.com.au. We used to be in 1st of Google for keywords like wedding Mandaps, Indian Wedding Mandaps etc, Would be great if some one helps us to figure out whats gone wrong .. I also did Webmaster Fetch as Google but nothing happened. Thanks
Web Design | | Verve-Innovation0 -
Too Many Outbound Links on the Home Page - Bad for SEO?
Hello Again Moz community, This is my last Q of the day: I have a LOT of outbound links on the home page of www.web3.ca Some are to clients projects, most are to other pages on the website. Can reducing this to the core pages have a positive impact on SEO? Thanks, Anton
Web Design | | Web3Marketing870 -
Using a query string for linked, static landing pages - is this good practice?
My company has a page with links for each of our dozen office locations as well as a clickable map. These offices are also linked in the footer of every page along with their phone number. When one of these links is clicked, the visitor is directed to a static page with a picture of the office, contact information, a short description, and some other information. The URL for these pages is displayed as something like http:/example.com/offices.htm?office_id=123456, with seemingly random ID numbers at the end depending on the office that remain static. I know first off that this is probably bad SEO practice, as the URL should be something like htttp://example.com/offices/springfield/ My question is, why is there a question mark in the page URL? I understand that it represents a query string, but I'm not sure why it's there to begin with. A search query should not required if they are just static landing pages, correct?. Is there any reason at all why they would be queries? Is this an issue that needs to be addressed or does it have little to no impact on SEO?
Web Design | | BD690 -
Does having a Blog link in the top level navigation provide any better SEO value, or would having it in a footer or top navigation work just as good?
Trying to decide on whether placing a link to the blog in our top level navigation would have a better SEO value than just placing it in top or footer navigation. I have an ecommerce site.
Web Design | | RPD0 -
Trying a completely new design on our .co.uk should I have it on a different IP to my .com
We have just relaunched http://www.gobananas.co.uk/ and made the site much smaller than .com and dissallowed robots on 98% of the site. The goal with this site is to get users to use the search facility rather than go through our menus like we have on .com Should I host the UK site on a different IP number to the .com?Thanks
Web Design | | PottyScotty0 -
Does Google follow links inside a <noscript>tag?</noscript>
I'm looking at making an embedable calculator and asking users to embed it to their website. I had the idea of using javascript to include the calculator which would also conatain a text link back to my site in order to gain some back links. If it's possible Google won't see the link (as they may not execute the javascript), is it safe to place the link in the <noscript>tag? If so, Will it be indexed and will Page Rank be passed?</span></p> <p>Thanks in advance for your answers. </p> <p>Anthony</p> <p><span style="color: #5e5e5e;"><br /></span></p></noscript>
Web Design | | BallyhooLtd0