External links in a global footer
-
My company runs a real estate site (http://yochicago.com) that features editorial blog and video content. In our footer, we feature links to some of our client sites. That footer is global, i.e., on every page of the site, of which there are thousands.
One of our clients has been hit by Google for unnatural links. While I am very aware of them using a network of junk sites (http://www.seomoz.org/q/can-our-white-hat-links-get-a-bad-rap-when-they-re-alongside-junk-links-busted-by-panda), could we be contributing to the problem?
Our site has the most links into the troubled site.
-
I agree with EGOL. That is a lot of external links to include sitewide. The presence of the word 'Sponsors' may also make it look like they are paid links.
Consider simply creating one 'Sponsors' page on your site, and including a nice link to that page in your footer.
It's hard to decide if you are contributing to their problem. I'd definitely advise them to discontinue their use of the junk network and remove as many of those links as possible.
-
Just saying what I think and what I would do.....
There are a lot of links in that footer. If that was my site I would remove them to protect my own rankings as well as those of my clients.
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
-
Link Getting Deleted for Few Days
If a link gets deleted for few days and re-appears... Will Google treat it as a "new link" or give it the same old link-age.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Akshayshr0 -
Dealing with links to your domain that the previous owner set up
Hey everyone, I rebranded my company at the end of last year from a name that was fairly unique but sounded like I cleaned headstones instead of building websites. I opted for a name that I liked, it reflected my heritage - however it also seems to be quite common. Anyway, I registered the domain name as it was available as the previous owner's company had been wound up. It's only been in the last week or two where I've managed to have a website on that domain and I've been tracking it's progress through Moz, Google & Bing Webmaster tools. Both the webmaster tools are reporting back that my site triggers 404 errors for some specific links. However, I don't have or have never used those links before. I think the previous owner might have created the links before he went bust. My question is in two parts. The first part is how do I find out what websites are linking to me with these broken URL's, and the second is will these 404'ing links affect my SEO? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mickburkesnr0 -
Has anyone had experience with the Disavow Links tool? If so did you notice positive results from it?
I recently noticed a large number of backlinks from low authority directories coming in for one of my clients. These links were either purchased from a competitor or from a directory service site that knows we might be willing to pay to have bad links removed. I've contacted the website admin and they require a payment of $.30 per link to have them removed from their directory. Has anyone had a similar experience? I'm also considering using the disavow tool but I've heard the outcome of using this tool is usually bad. I'd appreciate any feedback, thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Leadhub1 -
Link Building Plan Need some tips
Okay so I want to start focusing on SEO for my Web design company and I have been reading and reading and am now working on my off-page optimization and have some questions. My words are competitive words and a few of them are finally increasing to top 500 and a few in top 100. My current MozRank for my domain is 2.28, but my mozbar shows my homepage to be MozRank to be 3.35 Link Building Plan -Around 50 Directory submissions to high PR directories and high MozRank domains Free listings Paid Listings -3-5 articles written for guest posts Around 25 Local Business directories such as brownbook.net, whitepages, etc -Around 20 dofollow forum profile creation and backlinks from signatures -Squidioo Lens Creation( I will be creating high quality content related my website which would be web design, internet marketing, seo services.) -Hubpages Creation My question is should the content used on squidioo be 100% original, like can I post the content to other directories as well? -Article Directories Okay so from what I've read this is method doesn't really give much benefit with the recent updates, is this true or should I still at least submit some articles to article directories. I am also confused wouldn't distributing your articles to article directories be considered duplicate content? 20-25 Blog Comments on related blogs that support dofollow blog commenting, also will build some nofollow blog comment links for link diversity
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | azokaei0 -
Have I created link spam.....
Howdy fellow Mozzers.... Since Googles Penguin Update I am overly cautious when reviewing our link profile. I spotted 2 domains linking to us yesterday, 80+ links from each domain to our homepage. This looked superstitious, site wide links effectively. At first inspection I couldn't spot the links....they turned out to be two individual comments, but as the site had a plugin with "most recent comments", 1 link became 80. The link is an exact match of the individuals name who made the comment. And is a result of filling out the comment form. Name: Website: Comment: By filling out the name and website the name becomes the anchor text for the link to the website. Long story short...do you think this is penguin esq. link spam? Is it not? Or is it just not worth the risk and remove them anyway???
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RobertChapman0 -
Is Guest Blogging the Next Link Buying
I like the guest blogging idea for two reasons. One, it builds links, and two, it allows me to add content to a lot of blogs that are really interested in growing a lot of good content. But I often read articles that give credit to another article, that give credit to another article. I have been offered plenty of documents for client blogs, but I am worried that at some point in the future Google will decide all this guest blogging is similar to link trading and selling. What does everyone else think of guest blogging?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HandsomeWeb1 -
Link Wheel & Unnatural Links - Undoing Damage
Client spent almost a year with link wheels and mass link blasts - end result was getting caught by google. I have taken over, we;ve revamped the site and I'm finishing up with onsite optimization. Would anyone have any suggestions how to undo the damage of the unnatural links and get back into googles favour a little quicker? Or the best next steps to undo the damage.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ravynn0 -
Are there *truly* any white-hat link-building tactics?
With our new knowledge -- yielded from J.C. Penney, Forbes, Overstock, content farms, et al -- that the link graph/link profile can be algorithmically mined by search engines to uncover non-natural patterns of links occuring over time, is there any level of link-building that is safe to engage in? If so, then what are those "bright white"-hat tactics that are 100% safe for a site to use?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jcolman0