Are moderated external links in a "showcase" worth having?
-
We have some e-commerce software with several dozen websites that use our technology. The websites have links to the developer and design shops that made the site as well as the site itself. All of these sites are moderated so we don't have to worry about spam.
My question is should some or all of these links be rel=nofollow? The links are definitely pointing to legit development shops but those sites aren't always strictly related to e-commerce or the keywords we're trying to rank for.
Any thoughts on how to treat these links?
-
Just to clarify, our site provides e-commerce software, we're not an e-commerce site ourselves. Also, the links don't have keywords in them so that's not so much a concern.
Still, it sounds like you're saying there's little value in linking out in this situation. Thanks for the input.
-
If I had an ecommerce site, I would not want links to developers and design shops on my pages - especially if they are keyword anchor links. It sounds like their are multiple links here and I think that is also excessive.
In my opinion, the developers and design shops should be linking TO their clients rather than trying to siphon from them.
-
Are you saying its fine for my site but the individual sites might not want them as inbound links?
-
Google isn't stupid. Credit links are common and legitimate enough that it knows about them and how to handle them. However we've noticed 2 things regarding credit links since penguin:
1. Watch the anchors
There is a world of difference in intention between a link that looks like this: Site by XYZ Developers and one that looks like this: Website Design New York. Credit links commonly appear site wide in the footer and if those links were pointing to me I'd want to make sure that they look as unlike spam as possible.
2. Don't expect them to count as much
Hard to isolate this amongst all the other changes, but we've seen drops on sites that might suggest this type of link now counts for less. Really hard to say that for certain based on our data, as there are other factors in play. However it makes sense.
Whether you keep them or not is up to you as it's really one of those borderline things. Hopefully the above will help you make an informed choice.
-
If these were my sites I would remove those links completely.
-
Sounds like you have a pretty good control on who those pages are linking to. Typically larger e-commerce stores won't add footer links to their service providers in the footers, and I know a lot of web design agencies that add the link into the template without even asking the client if it's OK or not.
Since an outbound link in the homepage would sap some of the link juice of the site, I would suggest putting it under the control of the e-commerce store owner, whether or not to include those footer links, and whether or to make them rel=nofollow.
-
If the links are to legitimate sites and the links offer value to your users, I would leave them as followed links. If you have a concern about the target site then you can change them to nofollow.
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
-
No follow external links
Hi all, Our blog utilizes a fair amount of guest blog articles. Each article includes a link to the authors site. Some memebers of our team believe it is best practice to no follow all of these links while others believe we should follow the links, Our page rank and domain authority are almost always much higher then the guest blogger's site so we want to know the pros and cons of nofollow vs follow of these links. Since the domain authority and page rank of guest blog sites are low will this have a negative effect on our site? They aren't spammy and are legitimate sites covering similar content. Any feedback would be greaty appreciated!
Link Building | | STP_SEO0 -
GWT Lists URLs with links to my site, but those URLs don't have links to my site
There are a number of URLs that show up for my website in Webmaster Tools as having links to my site when in fact they don't. I know this to be a fact because I actually wrote some of the sites that Google is saying are linking to my site and I know there isn't any links on the specific pages to that site. For example, the site in question is: https://www.liftproducts.com/ As an example, Google is saying that about 100 URLs from https://www.lift-tables.net/ are linking to it when, I'm fairly confident that there is only 1 link to it found here: https://www.lift-tables.net/info.php?countrytabs=3 Yet Google says links exist on this (and many more) page: https://www.lift-tables.net/liftproducts/max-lift/lpt4w-030-48.php I thought at first it might have been due to linking to a image file directly instead of locally hosting it, but after checking the source, that's not the case. I am also seeing this type of non-linking being reported on sites I have no clue what they are. For example, some Spanish site about tandem bicycles is being listed as linking to liftproducts.com: http://206-225-85-34.dedicated.abac.net/tandem/inc Yet I can find no evidence of an actual link existing. Am I missing something here? Any insight of why this is happening and how I can clean up my link signature would be appreciated.
Link Building | | Nivik231 -
Page links, header links, footer links
HI I have been hearing about links, you should keep to 100 Just look at this url http://www.powerwale.com/store/acdelco-sealed-vrla-iacdv5l--b-5ah-bike-battery/77031 and go for Recommend section, where you same product applies to different vehicles 1. im confused, should keep it or not?
Link Building | | Rahim119
2. Header links are less, Footer links are less, and in the future, we are planning to add more, will this affect SEO more than 100
i see many ecommerce sites, has menu showing many categories, more 100 categories links
3. Wht about link equity? If I have more links in header and footer page(all this will follow in the rest of pages).
4. More links in the header and footer shows that you are big ecommerce site.. Pls suggest, which is right way and go gain SEO value1 -
Changing links
Hi guys i wanted you views on changing the anchor text of links. I have quality links coming in but with year terms such as 2012 in there, if i want to change them all to 2013 for example would it be badly seen by Google? I cant say i feel comfortable about doing it but they are my links and are related to our products. Any advice much appreciated.
Link Building | | pauledwards0 -
Why my twitter handle link is not getting counted in links, though for other sites it is counting!
My twitter handle page link is not getting counted, though it is getting counted for other sites
Link Building | | EG0CENTRIX0 -
Internal Linking - 100 plus links
Hi Everyone, I have a question of how the on-page links are being counted. Say you have a page with a warning of having too many on page links (100+). How are all of these links counted? Let's say there are only 5 links on that page. Do the links on each of those pages count too and so on and so forth? I just want to make sure I have wrapped my head around this correctly. Thanks!
Link Building | | dirigodev0 -
NEW LINKS
Hi If you plan to add new links to a site which currently has very few inbound links what is the maximum amount you could add in any one day before it is deemed by Google to be suspicious and unatural. I am referring ot manually added links, not robotic. Thank you 🙂
Link Building | | PH2920