WordPress Plugin Backlink?
-
When developing a WordPress plugin, is it OK to include a dofollow backlink with the name of the source site as the anchor text? Or would Google consider this spammy?
-
Taking a hit for manipulative tactics is usually something of a percentage game, one you don't want to play. The competitor may have an older domain and a stronger backlink profile. Sooner or later, even the larger brands get hit.
It was was a few years ago, almost to the day, that JC Penney was outed by the New York Times. This prompted a manual action. Your competitor may well fall to the next Penguin filter.
I've seen manipulation in a number of industries, sometimes it just takes time. Other times it takes someone with a little more clout. Though we can likely count on Penguin becoming a part of the algorithm, and we will most likely see another Penguin filter.
-
That is funny how that worked out. I used to live in Far North Dallas when I worked with a previous agency. Feel free to drop a private message.
-
Hi JaBacchetta,
Matt Cutts is quite clear about follow and nofollow links in widgets - see attached YouTube movie. Why your competitor was able to do a similar kind of thing and didn't got penalised is always the question.Are you 100% sure he hasn't received a warning. Maybe your competitor states upfront very clear a link is included.
Also it is unknown when you receive a visit from a crawler. So could be your competitor was just visit before the plugin went live, and you were visit after it was just live. I would also advice to take out the follow link a use a nofollow version.
How you will recover is depending on to many factors as the algoritme changes every day / week. Good luck with it.
-
Travis, by the way, looked up your company in Grapevine, TX... looks like we live right down the street from each other. I'm in the Keller area.
Small world.
-
Thanks for the replies. I'm going to get a bit more specific...
If you look at this page, in the top right sidebar, you'll find our WordPress widget in action. It shows a "Quote of the Day" with a quote from our website, and then it links to our site using our site's name as the anchor text. My thoughts on this are that we're providing value to other publishers, and they're feeding our content to their site (which qualifies as an endorsement of the content that we offer, which in turn validates a dofollow link). We're also using our site's name as the anchor text, rather than a keyword-stuffed link. This technique is clearly white-hat, in my opinion.
But, apparently Google did not like the idea. Since releasing the plugin 10 days ago, our rankings have dropped significantly across the board.
We're using 97thFloor as our SEO agency at the moment. Initially they said they thought the plugin might be a good idea, but they called me today to tell me to nofollow all the links, since our total backlinks had tripled in the last week, which they believe caused the rankings to drop.
We updated the plugin tonight to include nofollow on the backlink.
Interestingly, one of our competitors in the niche released a similar plugin, seen here. And their dofollow link is actually black-hat, with the anchor text being "more Quotes". They have not taken a hit at all. Is this because they've already got an established backlink profile?
And, now that we've nofollowed our plugin link, is it likely that our rankings will improve back to their original positions?
Appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks!
-
Very. Bad. Idea. This is exactly the kind of manipulative linking process that Google punishes with the Penguin part of their algorithm. At best, use a nofollowed link, but I'd be very reluctant to do this at all if these will be sitewide links and will be a really large proportion of your total backlink profile.
If you stop and think about this for a moment, you'll see why this is so risky. Certainly many who might use your plugin have quality sites. But many more of the sites that will be linking to you are likely to be questionable or downright spammy. Plus, almost none of them are likely to be related to what your site is about.
All these things combine to create the very definition of unnatural linking in Google's eyes.
Hope that helps?
Paul
-
That likely falls into the Link Scheme category. I wouldn't recommend it.
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
-
Buying domains for the backlink profile: Still a white hat strategy?
There's a DR 51 domain we'd like to buy, with a quality backlink profile. We'd like to 301 redirect this domain to our DR 46 domain, and possibly setup something to make the user experience smooth for people expecting the old domain. Is this still a white hat strategy? How would you calculate the value/what kind of offer to make?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | catbur0 -
Backlinks in Footer - The good, the bad, the ugly.
I tried adding onto a question already listed, however that question stayed where it was and didn't go anywhere close to somewhere others would see it, since it was from 2012. I have a competitor who is completely new, just popped onto the SERPs in December 2015. Now I've wondered how they jumped up so fast without really much in the way of user content. Upon researching them, I saw they have 200 backlinks but 160 of them are from their parent company, and of all places coming from the footer of their parent company. So they get all of the pages of that domain, as backlinks. Everything I've read has told me not to do this, it's going to harm the site bad if anything will discount the links. I'm in no way interested in doing what they did, even if it resulted in page 1 ( which it has done for them ), since I believe that it's only a matter of time, and once that time comes, it won't be a 3 month recovery, it might be worse. What do you all think? My question or discussion is why hasn't this site been penalized yet, will they be penalized and if not, why wouldn't they be? **What is the good, bad and ugly of backlinks in the footer: ** Good Bad Ugly
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Deacyde0 -
Huffingtonpost selling anchor text backlinks?
I found this article on huffingtonpost.co.uk http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/top-5-most-influential-ma_b_3682369.html In the 2nd paragraph it has the words "mannequin retail displays", linked to a site that sells mannequins. The link has nothing to do with the story and it seem ( to me a least) its been paid for. Looking at other old posts by the same author its does not seem to be a one off: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/celebrity-honeymoons_b_3962560.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PaddyDisplays
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/cruise-holidays_b_3898661.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/five-of-the-worlds-most-important-rivers_b_3761599.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/the-top-4-manliest-jobs-in-the-world_b_3694431.html I'm just surprised that a site as big as the huffington post selling back links in this way0 -
Do pingbacks in Wordpress help or harm SEO? Or neither?
Hey everyone, Just wondering, do pingbacks in Wordpress help or harm SEO? Or neither?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jhinchcliffe1 -
Virus on wordpress second time PLEASE HELP
hello Mattew i have a big problem on the web is the second time that a virus attacked the wordpress of my web. That is why i am being very busy trying to solve it fisrt time i upload a backup before the attack, but now if infected again All de webs that are positioned on google for ejemple if you look for anithing on google "estetica of propdental.com" it redirects to page http://medicaresue.com can you help me please is the second time and i am losing lots of traffic and positions on google thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Are expired domains for Godaddy backlinks already reset by googel ?
When does Google actual reset backlinks to a domain. If i am buying expired domains from godaddy action for linking purpose am i wasting my time.Also if that the case whats the point of buying expired domains with many links pointing to them. If the backlinks to the expired domain still show up under my Google webmaster tool window does that mean Google counts that link?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ryguy870 -
Powered by/Credit backlinks and nofollow
Pseudo question: I have a website that has 100K pages. On about 50K of those pages I have information that is fed to me via an outside 3rd-party website. Now, I like to give credit where credit is due, so I add a backlink to the website that is feeding me this content. A simple backlink like so: Information provided by: Company ABC Now, this 3rd-party website wants me to remove the nofollow tags from the backlink, but I am very, very skeptical because to me, sending ~50K dofollow backlinks to a single site might make the Google monster upset with me. This 3rd-party site is being very hard-headed about this, to the point where I am thinking of terminating the relationship all together. I digress. Scoured the net before writing this, but couldn't really find anything directly related to my issue. Thoughts? Is a nofollow required here? We're not talking 1 or 2 links here; we're talking tens of thousands (50K is low; it will probably be upwards of 100K when all is said and done as my site has many, many pages). Thanks in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | THB0 -
Dentist office website has foreign country backlinks. Scrap it or Move On
Another SEO person who was working my potential dental customer website managed to hookup over 147 backlinks to various bogus weather sites, watch sites, chinese sites etc. The dentist owns the URL which is "dentist" plus his zipcode. Is it worth continuing SEO on this site or should I scrap the URL? I am worried that Google may take action on this site sometime in the future and all the work I will do will be lost. He does have another website, because SEO's keeps trying to sell dentists microsites... This site isn't too bad but he doesn't own the URL but the url is a combination of the two doctors names and isn't easy to remember... and we would have to spend time trying to gain control of the URL. Suggestions?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Czubmeister0