WBF told me to get rid of my low contrast footer links...
-
I just finished watching WBF where Rand took a moment to identify some of the potentially harmful SEO practices that could be penalized in the upcoming algo update targeting over-optimization. (Great post BTW!) One of which was using low contrast, exact match footer links to inner pages.
But I couldn't help but notice something similar being done on the SEOmoz site. In the attached image, I compare this to a site I've done using a similar practice.
What are your thoughts on footer links found in this example and how should we, as SEOs, handle footer links in the future?
-
I agree with you, but you see it quite a lot - especially people trying to optimise for multiple location based variations.
-
Correct me if I'm wrong but surely adding more internal links to pages on your site with different keywords would dilute your overall link value, and therefore you're actually doing yourself no favours anyway?
-
I took it to be the kind of footers that are there to create spammy internal links for multiple permutations of particular keywords. The fact that they're not just low contract, but so unnoticeable that that the link really can't be there for any user benefit.
It seems that more than ever, it's a good idea to ask yourself what the reason is to add something to the web page...
-
Hi Alex,
I agree with what you're saying about distracting you from the content of the site, but if you've reached the footer chances are you've already read the important information on the page.
Links in the footer tend to be the boring Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy, Contact Us and maybe a few social media links, and lets be honest we don't immediately visit a site and expect to see that information in our faces or in the main navigation or above the fold.
It's a shame that there aren't more tools or extensions available that will allow us as website developers to optimise our site and code to help users with more diverse accessibility issues.
-
<title>SEOMoz Rand Fishkins Response | Footer Link Best Practices</title>
Footer Link Best Practices by Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOMOZ
Ooops - did I over optimize this reply?
Hear us, Rand, hear us.
-
Thanks for the responses. I agree with Ben, in that all text should be readable and not hidden in anyway. But I also think there is a need to have lower contrast text to avoid distracting users from other elements on the page.
If I'm reading content on a page, I don't want to be distracted by the footer links. On the flip side, if I can't find something, I look to the footer for some navigational help.
And Mark, I'll be curious to see what Rand has to say as well (although I'm not counting on it). I know he's a busy guy. I would certainly welcome a response from any of his knowledgeable staff.
Thanks again!
-
I think this goes back to the days where people sued to have a whole bunch of spammy links in the footers of their sites and changed the colour of the text to match the background of the footer in an attempt to fool search engines and get higher up in the rankings.
I can certainly see why its an accessibility issue for users using screen-readers to navigate through the web. Sometimes I view my own website using Lynx on my Linux command-line to see where I can improve my website accessibility.
-
I asked a similar question in the comments on today's WBF.
It wasn't clear to me whether the focus was on low-contrast, for-seo-purposes-only only keyword phrases or the concept of footer links in general.
Looking forward to some clarification from Rand, the Master of the Board.
-
I think that you need to have good contrast between text colours and background to ensure good usability of the site.
I always make sure that my designs don't have any combination of green text on red background (and vice versa) because visitors who are colour blind won't be able to clearly read the text on a page.
I can see why Google is pushing for this to be a ranking factor as it should lead to more accessible websites being produced, but I don't see how the algorithm can determine low contrast on a website.
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
-
When using external links for onsite optimization, should they be follow or nofollow links?
I'm trying to optimize my home page and need to add external links. I'm planning to link to other authoritative sites. Should they be follow or no follow links?
On-Page Optimization | | ntaparia171 -
How does the footer links impact the the pages SEO quality?
Hi, i want to ask a question. Does this kind of internal links will affect the SEO post quality? Please open the attachment (image) KskOg3U
On-Page Optimization | | joshuaong0 -
Do follow links
Is it good(according to SEO) to give dofollow rel to external links of highly trusted websites from our content?
On-Page Optimization | | Obbserv0 -
Why Can't I Get Indexed?
I cannot seem to get my website indexed by Google! I submitted the sitemap using Google WMT about a month ago but only one page is being indexed. There are very few backlinks to the site, so I don't believe there are any penalties due to over-optimization that would prevent indexing. Also, my robots.txt file is properly configured and is not preventing any pages from being crawled. I've tried using the "Fetch as Google" settings in WMT with no luck. Any ideas?
On-Page Optimization | | socialfirestarter0 -
What Should I Do With Low Quality Content?
As my site has definitely got hit by Panda, I am in the process of cleaning my website of low quality content. Needless to say, shitty articles are completed being removed but I think lots of this content is now of low quality because it is obsolete and dated. So what should I do with this content? Should I rewrite those articles as completely new posts and link from the old posts to the new ones? Or should I delete the old posts and do a 301 redirect to the new post? Or should I rewrite the content of these articles in place so I can keep the old URL and backlinks? One thing is that I've got a lot more followers than I used to so publishing a new post gets a lot more views, like and shares and whatnot from social networks.
On-Page Optimization | | sbrault741 -
Main page link reduction
I am in the process of reducing the number of internal links from the homepage with the assumption that the more links I have the more "juice" goes to internal pages I have two options since many of the links are costumer service related 1. create one link that leads to a costumer service page and place all the links their. 2. get all those links on the main page as nofollow links. what are your opinions
On-Page Optimization | | ciznerguy0 -
To many links on a single page Error
I've seen it a few times where you should have less then 100 links per page to help crawling unless your a massively authoritative website. But what happens when your a large ecommerce website with categories and sub categories, you could have a category called 'computers' with a drop down list containing lots of sub cat links. Whats the solution to this? Cheers
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper1 -
Does link text "more information" have more weight than a normal link?
Does the anchor text "more information" hold any additional weight than any other anchor text? My suspicion is no, but just wanted to confirm.
On-Page Optimization | | nicole.healthline0