Confused on footer links (Which are best practices for footer links on other websites?)
-
Hello folks,
We are eCommerce web design and Development Company and we give do follow links of our website to every projects which we have done with specific keywords. So now the concern is we are seeing huge amount of back-links are being generated from single root domain for particular keyword in webmaster tools.
So what should be the best way to practice this? Should we give no follow attribute to it or can use our company logo with link?
-
Thanks guys..we are going to implement on our website..
-
Well to be completely on the safe side sure. But having a portfolio site is so extremely legitimate, transparent and common that I see no reason for worries. However, I can only speak for myself who is wearing a completely white hat and therefore sleeping sound at night;)
-
Yes Philipp B, but even with the portfolio onsite, i still recommend nofollowing those links to stick to google guidelines and play in the green area !
-
rikano's got a point there. This is why I suggest creating a portfolio or "our customers" page to place this links. There you fully disclose why links are there and you don't need to nofollow them. Links like these in the footer are bad for SEO and useless for users visiting the site.
-
Hello,
The best practice with these links is nofollowing them, unless you want to get hit by penguin or unnatural links penalty. Actually, footer links have no more value for SEO (or just litle value) and abusing them makes a clear pattern that will surely get you penalized.
I have dealt with several Google links penalties, and have recovered 80% of my clients. One thing i'm 100% sure of is: site-wide footer links when placed in multiple websites/domains will hit you soon or later. I know it's not that easy to convince you, but ask your self these questions, and u'll will surely nofollow those links:
1. Do those links add value to the page where they are placed ? (NO)
2. Would you click on a footer link, or give it trust ? (A very few people would)
3. Is that link editorial (the webmaster has placed it and he's happy to present it to his visitors to provide them with usefull resource) ? (No)
Just add rel=nofollow to that link, and start building some genuine links (guest posts, shares, broken links method) to get your site rank higher and earn more customers !
Hope it helps,regards
-
I think without nofollow is okay since linking to your clients and projects is legitimate and as long as you are transparent about why you link to them (because it's your portfolio).
-
It depends if you are looking to increase the overall authority of your website. If you are happy with the level at the moment, then yes put 'nofollow' attribute on. I would not say there was a big risk in having it 'followed' as it is an image and not keyword rich anchor text. I would also give the logo, img title/alts that are branded rather than keyword.
E.g.
Hope this helps
-
Thanks for your reply..
what do you suggest? company logo and name with "nofollow" attribute or without "nofollow" attribute?
-
Thanks Jonathan,
for your quick response and clearing our doubt. but still there is one query do we give our company logo without "nofollow" attribute? will it be advisable?
-
i vote for using an image in that situtation
For a good example for footer area links, look at Zappos and how they do theirs.
-
I would not put this in the footer, and definitely not with optimized anchor text. This will raise a red flag for google and does not add additional value to either you or your clients. If you do want to link to projects (which i think makes sense) it's better to have a portfolio page with these links. And as Jonathan suggested, use brand names or logo images to link to these projects.
-
Personally I would go with image or brand name anchor text. I read an article a while back about a UK Web company getting a manual spam penalty for having 'web design location' on all the websites they had developed. They change the anchor text to brand and filed for reconsideration and the penalty was lifted.
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
-
Reverify website
Hello, I want to disavow some really dodgy links and although the website is verifed since we see a meta tag in the source code, we no longer have the login details for the email address used to verify it so can't access the tools console. So how do I upload a disavow file (the links i got were from Ahref and Moz analysis)? Should I reverify the website using a new email address and upload a new meta tag? Is there a problem with doing this? Sorry if this is obvious!
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Paid links that are passing link equity from a blog?
We have a well-known blogger in our industry with whom we've had a long-standing relationship. We've had inbound links from his blog for many, many years. Today I noticed that we are running a banner ad listed on all pages of his blog under a heading that says "Sponsors." He has dedicated an entire page of his site giving full disclosure of all advertising. However, all of the links on his site pointing to us are passing link equity. To my knowledge they've been this way ever since they were first established years ago. I am fairly certain this fellow, with whom we have an excellent relationship, neither knows nor cares what a "nofollow" attribute is. I am afraid that if I contact him with a request that he add "nofollow" attributes to all of our links that it will damage our relationship by creating friction. To someone who knows nothing and cares nothing about SEO, asking them to put a "nofollow" on a link could either seem like a technical request they don't know how to handle, or something even potentially "shady" on our part. My question is this: Considering how long these links have been there, is this even worth worrying about? Should I just forget about it and move on to bigger fish, or, is this a potentially serious enough violation of Google Webmaster guidelines that we should pursue getting those links "nofollow" attributes added? I should add that we haven't received any "unnatural" link notifications from Google, ever, and haven't ever engaged in any questionable link-building tactics.
Technical SEO | | danatanseo1 -
Image Height/Width attributes, how important are they and should a best practice site include this as std
Hi How important are the image height/width attributes and would you expect a best practice site to have them included ? I hear not having them can slow down a page load time is that correct ? Any other issues from not having them ? I know some re social sharing (i know bufferapp prefers images with h/w attributes to draw into their selection of image options when you post) Most importantly though would you expect them to be intrinsic to sites that have been designed according to best practice guidelines ? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Product Level 301 Redirects Best Practice
When creating a 301 mapping file for product pages, what is best practice
Technical SEO | | Bucktown
for which version of the URL to redirect to? Base directory or one
subdirectory/category path. Example Old URL: www.example.com/clothing/pants/blue-pants-123 Which of the following should be the new target URL: www.example.com/apparel/pants/blue-pants-123 www.example.com/apparel/blue-apparel/blue-pants-123 www.example.com/apparel/collections/spring-collection/blue-pants-123 www.example.com/blue-pants-123 This is assuming the canonical tag will be www.example.com/blue-pants-123. Also, if www.example.com/blue-pants-123 cannot be reached via site
navigation would it be detrimental to make that the target URL if Google
cannot crawl that naturally? Thanks0 -
Internal links of my website is taken as inbound link ?
Hi, I was checking my links in Open Site Explorer (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.bons-plans-vacances.fr) this morning and i came up with this: My main domain is taken as outbound links ...! This link : www.bons-plans-vacances.fr/ Anchor Text : (img alt)100% Bons Plans Voyages From this URL : www.bons-plans-vacances.fr/ I have the same problem with my subdomains : voyage.bons-plans-vacances.fr/sejour/Toutes-Destinations I have that HTML code on the link : Any help ? This is very strange .. i have the same result in google webmaster tools. Thanks 🙂 eDE9b.jpg
Technical SEO | | BonsPlansvacances0 -
Too many external links?
Ok, so I am finally focusing more on SEO of my hobby website as I am notice the relavent keywords are not really onsite what I want, for example, according to analytics "post" is my most popular keyword which I assume is from the vbulletin forum. My question today is that according to the moz scan, my forum has too many external links, my question is what are some measures I can do whether within the vbulletin forum or custom coding to reduce the amount of links/increase power? www.rcnightmare.com
Technical SEO | | TheTippingPoint0 -
HTTP301 or link ?
We have a page on a website (let's name it ABC) which ranks very well on Google for a specific keyword but this keyword is not the main activity of website ABC. For this reason we created website XYZ for offering the services related to the specific keyword. How shall we redirect the visitors from website ABC to website XYZ so XYZ gets all the weight ? Is it best to do an HTTP301 from the specific page on site ABC or from site ABC, remove nearly all content related to the keyword and create a link to website XYZ ? Your advice is well appreciated.
Technical SEO | | netbuilder0 -
301 from a Link Directory
Hey guys. I am more looking for advice to confirm something on this one if anyone could offer help? My client has a reciprocal only link directory that is actually ranking higher than their company website. Surely from an SEO point of view, in this instance, it would make sense to kill the link directory and put a re-direct on the whole thing over to their main site? Would appreciate any advice on this one 🙂
Technical SEO | | Nextman0