SEO Link on Clients Site
-
Hey SEOMozzers,
Quick question. In light of the possible 'over-optimisation' penalties pending from Google should we be looking to remove the SEO links to our site from our Clients websites? I appreciate that including a link to our site from an anchor text that includes 'SEO' in it may be like waving a flag to Search Engines saying we are carrying out SEO on our Clients sites.
Obviously we would sooner risk a drop in our SEO keyword rankings than risk a penalty of any kind for our Clients.
What is the recommended practice here?
-
Hi, this was recently asked at http://www.seomoz.org/q/following-penguin-what-is-the-best-practice-for-a-web-design-agency-placing-a-footer-link-in-client-sites. I added in the conversation and there may be answers you are looking for there.
-
Hi,
a) I don't think your client should really get affected with that one link out to your website. May be, one thing you could consider is to request and obtain from the client a link from the body of a page (say, for example, Our Partners) instead of having it from the footer.
b) Secondly, you could vary the anchor text that you get from different client websites, instead of using the same one from all.
I'd say, treat this as an "earned" link from a happy client. Google might not value it as much as it does other links (based on placement on the page; the surrounding text etc.); but I don't think one would get penalised by this.
I'm sure there will be views to the contrary!
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
-
SEO effect of content duplication across hub of sites
Hello, I have a question about a website I have been asked to work on. It is for a real estate company which is part of a larger company. Along with several other (rival) companies it has a website of property listings which receives a feed of properties from a central hub site - so lots of potential for page, title and meta content duplication (if if isn't already occuring) across the whole network of sites. In early investigation I don't see any of these sites ranking very well at all in Google for expected search phrases. Before I start working on things that might improve their rankings, I wanted to ask some questions from you guys: 1. How would such duplication (if it is occuring) effect the SEO rankings of such sites individually, or the whole network/hub collectively? 2. Is it possible to tell if such a site has been "burnt" for SEO purposes, especially if or from any duplication? 3. If such a site or the network has been totally burnt, are there any approaches or remedies that can be made to improve the site's SEO rankings significantly, or is the only/best option to start again from scratch with a brand new site, ensuring the use of new meta descriptions and unique content? Thanks in advance, Graham
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gmwhite9991 -
Do I eventually 301 a page on our site that "expires," to a page that's related, but never expires, just to utilize the inbound link juice?
Our company gets inbound links from news websites that write stories about upcoming sporting events. The links we get are pointing to our event / ticket inventory pages on our commerce site. Once the event has passed, that event page is basically a dead page that shows no ticket inventory, and has no content. Also, each “event” page on our site has a unique url, since it’s an event that will eventually expire, as the game gets played, or the event has passed. Example of a url that a news site would link to: mysite.com/tickets/soldier-field/t7493325/nfc-divisional-home-game-chicago bears-vs-tbd-tickets.aspx Would there be any negative ramifications if I set up a 301 from the dead event page to another page on our site, one that is still somewhat related to the product in question, a landing page with content related to the team that just played, or venue they play in all season. Example, I would 301 to: mysite.com/venue/soldier-field tickets.aspx (This would be a live page that never expires.) I don’t know if that’s manipulating things a bit too much.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ticket_King1 -
SEO Concerns From Moving Mobile M Dot site to Responsive Version?
I currently have my mobile site set up as a m dot site. I have designed a new responsive/adaptive version of my desktop site I would like to start using. When I search from google on mobile, my website is indexed as the m dot site. When I make the switch, this will no longer be the case as I will only have one url for both mobile and desktop. The m dot url's will no longer work. Are there any SEO consequences from making this shift?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mikeylong70 -
SEO implications of serving a different site on HTTPS vs. HTTP
I have two sites: Site A, and Site B. Both sites are hosted on the same IP address, and server using IIS 7.5. Site B has an SSL cert, and Site A does not. It has recently been brought to my attention that when requesting the HTTPS version of Site A (the site w/o an SSL cert), IIS will serve Site B... Our server has been configured this way for roughly a year. We don't do any promotion of Site A using HTTPS URLs, though I suppose somebody could accidentally link to or type in HTTPS and get the wrong website. Until we can upgrade to IIS8 / Windows Server 2012 to support SNI, it seems I have two reasonable options: Move Site B over to its own dedicated IP, and let HTTPS requests for Site A 404. Get another certificate for Site A, and have it's HTTPS version 301 redirect to HTTP/non-ssl. #1 seems preferable, as we don't really need an SSL cert for Site A, and HTTPS doesn't really have any SEO benefits over HTTP/non-ssl. However, I'm concerned if we've done any SEO damage to Site A by letting our configuration sit this way for so long. I could see Googlebot trying https versions of websites to test if they exist, even if there aren't any ssl/https links for the given domain in the wild... In which case, option #2 would seem to mostly reverse any damage done (if any). Though Site A seems to be indexed fine. No concerns other than my gut. Does anybody have any recommendations? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dsbud0 -
Site Redesign - Inbound Links
Hello all. What would be some of the best practices or good resources on site redesign while maintaining inbound links? We would hate to have the natural, organic links to the site we have generated over the past 3 years to all of a sudden become broken. The domain is not changing but the URL structure very well may. For example, www.domain dot com/blog/postabouttopic which has many inbound links may move to www.domain dot com/news/blog/postabouttopic Is it a matter of simply using 301 redirects from the old pages to the new pages? Is there any issues to be aware of when having hundreds of 301 redirects? Is there a best practice? A good site that explains this in detail? Thank you for your time! Have a great day!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | S2RSolutions0 -
301 from a defunct site due to great link profile
Hi there Would really appreciate your help in dealing with the following scenario: My client is an authority brand in their sector. They were bought end 2011, and a new website was launched under the new owner's brand. For whatever reason no 301 redirects were put in place from the old site to the new site. I am now auditing the new site and the traffic is pitifully low, way lower than they used to enjoy on the old site. The old site is defunct and Google is no longer indexing it. However OSE shows that the link profile of the old site was very good with thousands of good quality links, whilst it is non-existent for the new site. I am thinking that even though Google does not index the old site, we should try and get access and put 301s in place on the old pages to help transfer across all the link juice to boost the new site. Do you agree or am I missing something here? Will page rank be transferred across even though the old site is dead? What else could we do? Would change of domain in WMT help? Although how would that work for a defunct site? We should probably 301 anyway as it would be good to ensure that folk following all those links can find my client's new site, but it would be great if page rank flowed too! All ideas appreciated! Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chammy
Wendy0 -
I currently have a client that has multiple domains for multiple brands that share the same IP Address. Will link juice be passed along to the different sites when they link to one another or will it simply be considered internal linking?
I have 7 brands that are owned by the same company, each with their own domain. The brands work together to form products that are then sold to the consumer although there is not a e-commerce aspect to any of the sites. I am looking to create a modified link wheel between the sites, but didn't know if my efforts would pay off due to the same IP Address for all the sites. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HughesDigital0 -
Google giving me only partial site links?
Hi Guys, My site is #1 ranked for the term "waiting till marriage," but Google only gives me partial site links. See "Forums - Articles - Questions - Videos" links in attached screenshot. How do I get the full, page-dominating, mini-description-having site links? Any suggestions? Note: I've got a ton of content and decent traffic, but I haven't put much time into developing back links yet. I'm a php developer, but I'm new to professional-level SEO. Any help would be hugely appreciated. Also, sorry about the inflammatory nature of the site. It's not a preachy site; it's just a support group. Hope it doesn't offend. partial-sitelinks.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MikeAM270