Keyword rich footer links negative effect
-
Based on bits and pieces of information I've read on SEOmoz, am I correct to state that:
"Keyword-rich footer links effect pages negatively in terms of the keyword referenced in the anchor text?"This means footer links in
Thanks in advance fellow Mozzers!
-
I don't think there is any hard evidence on them, Rand talks about the footers and manipulation here:
There is evidence on the fact that if they are linking to a page that has already been linked to higher in the code, they count for nothing. Only the first anchor text links count in google's eyes. So unless you're linking to pages that are not within the nav, it's fairly pointless from an SEO point of view.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/results-of-google-experimentation-only-the-first-anchor-text-counts
I think using the Footer for linking to pages already linked to is a waste of time. People use the navigation to find the page they're looking for. Footer anchors should be used for the stuff people expect to see there, i.e. T&Cs, policies, trust signals, awards, contact us, address, Company No. etc.
-
I don't think there is any hard evidence on them, Rand talks about the footers and manipulation here:
There is evidence on the fact that if they are linking to a page that has already been linked to higher in the code, they count for nothing. Only the first anchor text links count in google's eyes. So unless you're linking to pages that are not within the nav, it's fairly pointless from an SEO point of view.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/results-of-google-experimentation-only-the-first-anchor-text-counts
I think using the Footer for linking to pages already linked to is a waste of time. People use the navigation to find the page they're looking for. Footer anchors should be used for the stuff people expect to see there, i.e. T&Cs, policies, trust signals, awards, contact us, address, Company No. etc.
-
True, but SEOmoz is a bit smaller also and all their important link are in the main menu now. The art of consolidating links so the most important gets the full juice, and then they send their juice to sub pages.
Link Sculpting
-
Yes, that wouldn't be too smart. I agree. I have tested that with 2 of my websites Dutch version linking in footer to English version and vice versa. That impacted the rankings extremely negative from Top 10 to Not in Top 100.
But now I was wondering about the effect internally.
What are your experiences?
-
I agree on that. I couldn't filter a negative effect from the ranking factors either. But I have seen it here or there on SEOmoz (as a side note).
When you check the footer of SEOmoz.org. It used to have these categorized links to some parts on the site. However, if you check the current version of their footer, they only use a few links and certainly don't mention any hot parts on the site, let alone mention keywords.
I have tested it on my own site and it did impact my rankings negatively but I wondered if that was coincidence or not.
-
If those keyword-rich footer links are pointing to other websites...
-
I believe the recently posted new ranking factors says that it is not a negative impact (although I just read it through once quickly). Presuming you are not stuffing links. The footer should not be your XML file copied, but key site categories and pages of interest.
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
-
Which links to map across in site redesign
Hi there, I'm currently doing a fairly major website redesign for a client. They are moving to my hosting so I am creating the site on my cloud account and have edited my host files to work on it. The site structure will stay largely the same as it is quite a straightforward services site. However I'm moving them onto Wordpress from a different set up and I'm not sure how many of the links that they have, that aren't straight forward pages, I need to create redirects for. I have used Screaming Frog to get a list of all their URLs, of which there are 82. However alongside text/ html links I have: image/jpeg text/css
Web Design | | Frog-Marketing
application/javascript Do I need to create redirects for all of these link types? Or just any of the pages I'm not using? Many thanks, Sarah.0 -
Spotted Hidden Omiod Links in Footer - What do you think is Going on Here?
Hi guys, Hoping one of you have come across this before. While taking a look at the source code for a website I've recently started working on, I spotted some 'display:none' code in the footer of the page. Here's a snapshot of the code: close XMETAhead title : 404 Page Not Found | ( 39 chrs ) [http://www.omiod.com/chrome-extensions/meta-seo-inspector/info.php?meta=description&cont=404 Page Not Found.](<a href=)" title="more about description" target="_blank" class="ad_seo_link">description : 404 Page Not Found( 170 chrs )[http://www.omiod.com/chrome-extensions/meta-seo-inspector/info.php?meta=keywords&cont=404, 404 error page,](<a href=) " title="more about keywords" target="_blank" class="ad_seo_link">keywords : 404, 404 error page ( 7 items )SCRIPT![](<a href=)http://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.google-analytics.com">www.google-analytics.com http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js <div< a="">class="ad_seo_title">HTML5 report</div<>Doctype is not HTML5, there are no HTML5 tags, but at least no obsolete HTML tags were found. 1/5
Web Design | | ecommercebc0 -
Too Many Links on One Page - What to Do?!
Hello Geniuses, Prodigies, and Experts of the Field, My website pages for www.1099pro.com have too many links on one page, something like 150-175, and I understand that each page should ideally be under 100. Most of these links, approx 105, come from dropdown navigation options in the header toolbar or the footer links. It is my take that these links make our site easier to navigate but I'm sure that they are hurting my pagerank / SERPs. Is there a best way to handle a situation like this? I'd really prefer not to alter the header/footer layout of the entire site by removing 50-75 navigational links. The only other idea I have is below but I have no idea if it would work. For any link that I do not care to pass pagerank, institute a "nofollow" parameter. This would be my favorite option if it is viable.
Web Design | | Stew2220 -
How to create this image effect for my home page
How do I make a wide, somewhat fast loading image effect like this home page has: 3dcart.com work on my website bobweikel.com I'm asking for how to create the effect (with small enough image kb to load) and what the image should be of in your opinion. Thanks!
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
Is Fall In Keyword Ranking After Launch of Revamped Website Normal
After launching my redesigned website (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) Google ranking has dropped significantly for competitive keywords. The previous version of the site and the new version both have approximately 450 pages. My website developer was careful to implement 301 redirects. Monitoring Google Webmaster tools it shows that Google has picked up a quantity of duplicate content. More than 950 pages or shown in their index while my site only has 450 pages. There are also certain pages which require canonical which tags my developer is in the process of implementing. The relaunch was July 10. My developer is of the opinion that this fluctuation in ranking is normal and that it will take Google about one month to reindex the new site and remove the old pages from the directory. Is this accurate? Anyone have any ideas on why my site has tanked in Google's search results? Thank you very much. Sincerely,
Web Design | | Kingalan1
Alan Rosinsky0 -
Keywords in url - specific case question
There are a bunch of questions about keywords in the url and so far what I've gathered is that it's good to have them but keep it simple so it doesn't look stuffed. I'm working on redesigning some sites that were originally setup by a group who had no understanding of SEO (or perhaps I should say a misunderstanding) and spent a lot of time stuffing keywords EVERYWHERE. In some cases they weren't too far off but in others I think they just went overboard. One of the areas I'm trying to fix are the paths which leads to the following concerns. One of the sites has a basketball section and through the use of the Adwords keyword tool they determined that most people are searching for "basketball hoops". My first question is, how reliable are the monthly search numbers in the Adwords keyword tool? Are they accurate enough to warrant forming keyword strategies based on the results? As it relates to the url issue, the current tree for the basketball section of the site looks like this: /basketball (the landing page for the whole section, there are other sport specific pages as well) /basketball/hoops (goes nowhere. not sure why they didn't just go to /basketball-hoops/x for other pages) /basketball/hoops/72in-backboards (the systems are split into three different backboard sizes, these pages group them onto one overview page per size) /basketball/hoops/72in-backboards/specific-basketball-goal (the actual basketball goal details page with options to buy and such) So what I'm wondering about this setup is: does having /basketball/hoops take care of having the "basketball hoops" search term or would it be more effective to switch to /basketball-hoops? If it's fine to leave it at /basketball/hoops, do you think it would be beneficial to create an actual page for that path? We found that actually more people search for "basketball basket" than "basketball hoops" so maybe that would be a good page to try to make use of that term and explain maybe why people think "basket" instead of "hoop" and why we call ours "goals" or something. I tend to navigate pages by deleting path arguments and I hate when I land on a nonexistent path so I'm leaning toward changing the paths but just don't know if it's worth it at this point. Additionally, on one of the other sites, we have a domain that is the main keyword we want to rank for: swingsets.com The other company I mentioned then decided to put all of the product pages under: swingsets.com/swing-sets/{category}/{set-height}-{'swing-set'|'playset'|'swingsets'|'play-set'|etc...}/combo{#} So that comes out to look something like this: swingsets.com/swing-sets/outback/5ft-playsets/combo2 I've never liked that path setup. It looks stuffed to me, especially once they start using '5ft-swing-sets' and '6ft-play-set' on other product pages. It's inconsistent which is another issue I have since I tend to surf by path. Another issue with that setup is the final argument of combo{#} but there's nothing I can really do about that because they call the products out as combinations. The only actual product name is the "outback" part. I've been trying to come up with a better path setup for a long time now but again I'm concerned that I may just be wasting my time. The only thing I did do was make the height section consistently {height}-playsets. Is that good enough or should these paths remove /swing-sets from the beginning? The actual /swing-sets page is a good and valuable landing page but then I'm not sure if it remains valuable to keep it in the paths for the product pages afterward. Any insight into this dilemma would be appreciated. I've been stewing over this for a long time and my reasoning always becomes circular since I can see plenty of reasons for keeping them the way they are and simplifying them.
Web Design | | EscaladeSports0 -
Over Optimization & Footer Links for Crediting Web Design to a Company
With the recent updates to the algorithm having to do with link networks and over optimization it has got me to thinking about the footer links we add to each site that we build and do web design for linking back to ours. I could certainly see how Google could make the assumption that these are all on the same server, pointing back to one main site, and penalize us for that. Should we no=follow these links? They may say something like, "Website Designed By: Company Name". They do provide a valuable source to some extent of traffic to the site from people interested in our designs. Any thoughts?
Web Design | | JoshGill270 -
Negative Margins - Image Navigation
I created a good navigation but can't replicate it with html or css so I might have to stick to images. What would you recommend as a best practice for images in navigation? This site doesn't need to rank really high, it's mostly for a portfolio.
Web Design | | BeTheBoss0