Do web design footer links of websites you build have value?
-
Hi everyone.
I am trying to build up DA for my site and create linking opportunities with my clients sites but I am not seeing any link value.
I just did a redesign with another firm and we built out www.denbow.com . We have links to our sites in the footer but for some reason it's not being indexed.
Can someone help me understand if it is good to put built by a href link in the footer? I've built almost 12 sites in my first 1.5 years of being in business for myself and I thought the links would pass some sort of value.
Thanks in advance for the help and education.
Regards,
Noob Gary
-
Powerful statement. Question everything and I like the statement. I want to keep learning and I want to do White hat principles for my clients to raise their DA and ultimately get found.
-
EGOL,
I appreciate you taking a stand on the position and question raised. I guess it all comes down to competition. I have only had my website and marketing business for two years. My competition has been doing this since 2010. They have a ton of the footer links coming back to their site which helps their DA which is presently a 34. If this helps them, why can't it work to help my DA while showing off my work?
I just wan to know what is right, so I don't do anything spammy but I can tell, my frustration with getting found is already putting me on the slippery slope of cutting corners.
G
-
Also just remember even hunters get lost in the forest, knowledge is a quest not an end result.
Question everything
-
Like I posted below, the CIMC is a digital marketing conference which MOZ is attending as an exhibitor. They have four links in their footer no of which are no follow.
Does this mean they are wrong?
They are rel="external" . Is that considered best practice?
G
-
Just so you know... there are people out there who will adamantly disagree with me.
When I post here, I am saying what I would do with my own websites.
If I was the web designer I would not use these links. If I was the web design client I would not want those links on my website.
-
Thanks for that,
Yes I've been under the impression that any external link in a footer is going to be looked at questionably by google, especially if it's promotional in nature. Since it can indicate a paid link.
I've watched a few competitors using that same tactic to increase their overall DA for freshsite starting, they 1st ranked great and quickly dropped for various keywords relating to that link placed.
Thanks again EGOL & Gary
-
Hi Deacyde,
I'm talking about the Website Designed By Constructiv Works type URL. It's purpose was two fold, one of which I have learned is bad. 1. it is to allow people who are looking at the site, if they like it, find me in the footer and come to my site. 2. To provide link value like almost every other site I have now reviewed.
Here's one I came across this morning with multiple URL's. http://digitalbuzz.ca/
How is this site any different? Denbow.com
"sometimes I think I know what I am doing...other times I feel like a child lost in the forest..."
-
My comments are related to a situation like this.
Egol.com is a webdesign business and designs a website for CarSeller.com. Egol.com puts links in the footer of CarSeller.com that point to his own website at Egol.com.
In my opinion, those links are manipulative if their anchor text is Egol.com and they are not nofollowed.
If they have anchor text of "Dallas Web Design" then that is really spammy.
-
Are we talking about navigational urls in footers? The kind say a CMS will naturally place there?
Or is this about external sites, which I completely understand, I don't understand how navigational menus in the footer, say of the most popular pages on the site could be considered manipulation or a scheme.
I understand the original poster ( Gary ) is speaking of his site's url on domains he designs in the footer, but now this talk has me wondering the wording of google.
Thanks for the further clarification.
-
Hi EGOL,
I consider myself a white hat SEO person but I honestly didn't know about this. So am I a "good designer" probably not because I didn't know and everyday I am learning. I am working on trying to build out better and better sites with good design and UX.
However, am I someone who wants to learn from mistakes and improve? Yes, yes I can definitively tell you I am.
Thanks for the slap on the wrist and telling me to get my stuff together. Also, thanks for sharing the information so I can get better...
G
-
Designers want those links for their ranking value. That is manipulative intent.
Any good designer should know that Google dislikes site-wide footer links and links placed with manipulative intent. They should also know about nofollow.
These kinds of links will never be on one of my websites.
-
Gotcha. That makes sense and yet I am hoping that people in this person's network are looking for a webdesigner then they will click on and find me. But if that is spammy, I will remove it.
Didn't even think this was not good practice... almost two years in and still learning about the moving target.
Thanks again.
G
-
GOOGLE: "Here are a few common examples of unnatural links that may violate our guidelines:"
- Widely distributed links in the footers or templates of various sites
These links are "manufactured" for the purpose of manipulating the search engines. That is exactly why a lot of web design firms place them in the footer of their client's websites.
**you are spammy if you put a link in the footer to your site? Is that correct? **
It's not spammy if you nofollow the link. That removes the manipulation.
You could add "Web design by Egol.com" to the footer in unlinked text and that brand mention might be helpful for your rankings without it being a link.
-
Thanks EGOL.
So if your a webdesigner and you built a site for a client, you are spammy if you put a link in the footer to your site? Is that correct?
Gary
-
According to Google it is a link scheme. If the anchor text is keyword optimized then it is also linkspam.
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
-
Redirecting an Entire Website?
Is it best to redirect an old website to a new website page by page to like pages or just the entire site all at once to the home page of the new site? I do have about 10 good pages on the site that are worth directing to corresponding pages on the new site. Just trying to figure out what is going to preserve the most link juice. Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | photoseo10 -
Multiregional SEO - different website designs
Hello, when it comes to location & language targeting, is it possible to have different website page designs for their respective regions? So let's say we have one design for www.example.com/product-1 and a completely different design for www.example.com/us/product-1? Our branding is different for the US so would ideally like to use specific US designs for US pages. Thanks,
Technical SEO | | SEOCT0 -
Site-wide Links
Hey y'all, I know this question has been asked many times before but I wanted to see what your stance was on this particular case. The organisation I work for is a group of 12 companies - each with its own website. On some of the sites we have a link to the other sites within the group on every single page of that site. Our organic search traffic has dropped a bit but not significantly and we haven't received any manual penalties from Google. It's also worth mentioning that the referral traffic for these sites from the other sites I control is quite good and the bounce rate is extremely low. If you were in my shoes would you remove the links, put a nofollow tag on the links or leave the links as they are? Thanks guys 🙂
Technical SEO | | AAttias0 -
Linking to AND canonicalizing to a page?
I am using cross domain rel=canonical to a page that is very similar to mine. I feel the page adds value to my site so I want users to go to it, but I ultimately want them to go to the page I'm canonicalizing to. So I am linking to that page as well. Anyone foresee any issues with doing this? And/or have other suggestions? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | ThridHour0 -
How to attach at text to image that other websites use from my website
I often have other websites link to my website. They will do this with an image that they pull off of my website. (actually my website continues to serve the image). These inbound links are great, but they don't have alt text. Is there a way for me to attach alt text to the images, or is this something the other website needs to code themselves?
Technical SEO | | EugeneF0 -
4XX Broken Links
I am attempting to fix the issues SEOmoz found when crawling my site. I have a list of 4XX errors that I am attempting to fix. Basically I know one option is to redirect them to another page, but I would like to have the option to remove the links completely. The only problem is I can not find where the links are located. Does SEOmoz provide where on my site these broken links are? Or do they only provide the url that is linked to?
Technical SEO | | ClaytonKendall0 -
Too many footer links?
Hi. We're working on http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/ at the moment, and I was wondering what's everyone's opinion on footer links. There's quite a lot on the page, and I was wondering if there might be a few too many. If so, what would be the best plan of action? Remove them altogether, stick them in an iframe or in a bit of JS so they can't be crawled? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | neooptic0