Sitewide logo footer link - what's the risk?
-
Hi, an incredibly popular website, with several thousand pages, has offered me a site-wide footer logo link.
The site this popular website would backlink to has 50 high quality backlinks (and low volumes of traffic - it's a new site).
I am tempted to say no, because of the risk of penalty, but then I started wondering whether a logo link posed the same penalty risk as a text link.
-
Thanks for your responses everyone. Really helpful and much appreciated, Luke
-
Personally, I'd only take this if the link was nofollowed (i.e. for traffic purposes). I might consider a followed link using my url as an anchor, but would definitely not do it with a keyword as anchor text.
When considering links like this I would suggest considering the part of the quality guidelines that says, "Would you still do this if search engines didn't exist?" Ask yourself that objectively. If the idea is to get the footer link so it helps your SEO, then it has a high chance of looking manipulative to Google and could invoke a penalty/Penguin issue. But if the idea of the footer link is that it is truly one that drives traffic to your site then it may be ok.
What I find though is that it is hard for webmasters to evaluate these kinds of links objectively. We often fool ourselves into thinking it is for the traffic when really deep down we know that the purpose is to improve the pagerank of our own site.
If this site owner was willing to give you a footer link, I wonder, if instead, they would give you a mention in a blog post or article? That may appear more natural in the eyes of Google.
-
I would ask them to make it a homepage footer link only or links on an internal page (or 3 pages or so) that are indexed in Google and have some PR.
Sitewide footer links can get you penalized because of the old SEO link building tactic of "sponsored themes" I have seen it happen first hand.
-
I'd go for it, but I'm a betting man from Las Vegas
Variables:
- How well established is your site?
- Is the site relevant?
- Are their inbound links from well traveled authoritative sources?
- Will their site get alot of traffic in the future?
-
If you don't want the footer link from them, can you ask them for a single links somewhere else? Don't just dismiss the opportunity - especially if there's an opportunity to get a good relevant link.
The other thing to consider is not just the value (or risk) of a link for SEO, but also the direct traffic you might get. As a footer link you may not get a lot, but how many visitors would it take via this link before it's worth more than the extra link equity? How qualified would these visitors be? Are they likely convert?
What is the relationship between your site and the popular one you've been offered a link on? Is there an obvious connection that visitors to the sites are going to see?
-
I think your instincts are right: there's not a lot of risk, but not a lot of benefit either.
The algorithm doesn't "penalize" for sitewide footer links, it's just not as much of a ranking factor as it used to be. I guess the question is, knowing how popular the origin site is, if the links were set to nofollow, would you still do it? (branding, referral traffic)
If the answer is yes go for it. If it creates a relationship with that site's webmaster, it's a nobrainer.
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
-
Links on Brand Banners
Hi, For one of our ecommerce clients, we have brand banners on each brand page that links to their most popular product lines. Some of the banners just have a column of links, and some are paragraphs with copy and anchor text. Example below: Brand Line 1 Brand Line 2 Example 2: For the utmost in quality, performance and comfort, purchase Brand Line 1 . Brand Line 2 offers the perfect ease of use for beginners while not compromising on quality. Obviously these are just examples, and there are several links (more than 2) per brand, but I was wondering if this harms SEO in any way because of keyword stuffing? It makes sense to have the brand name in the link, otherwise the name of the lines might not make much sense (an example of this is one of the lines is called 849.. so without the brand name that doesn't mean much and looks weird) Do you think it would be better to have the links in just columns in the first example, or in paragraph format?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AliMac260 -
Disappearing Links Black Hat ?
I have seen reports of Black hat spamming with dodgy links but we have another issue with a clients site. The site had a small number of solid following links about 60 which had been in place for years and in the past few weeks all but those directly under their control have ceased to link. At the same time a very aggressive competitor has entered their market which is owned by the officers of an SEO company. Could it be that they have somehow disavowed the links to the site to damage it how do we find out? there are now just 10 following links?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eff-Commerce0 -
Why website isn't showing on results?
Hello Moz! Just got a quick question - we have a clientcalled and for some reason they just aren't showing up in the search results. It's not a new domain and hasn't been penalised (or has reason for penalty). All the content is fresh and has no bad back links to the site. It is a new website and has been indexed by Google but for even for branded search terms, it just doesn't show up anywhere on page 1 (i think page 4). Any help or advise is great appreciated is it's doing my head in. We are using www.google.com.au. Kindest Regards
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kymodo0 -
Should I Do a Social Bookmarking Campaign and a Tier 2 Linking?
I don't see anything bad in manually creating links on different (about 50) social bookmarking services. Is this method labeled as White Hat? I was wondering if it would be fine to create Tier 2 linking (probably blog comments) for indexing of the social bookmarking links? Please share your thoughts on the topic.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | zorsto0 -
Opinions sought on outbound Links page.
Hello Forum, I'm about the remove my outbound Links page at: http://www.pictureframe.com.au/---obs--picture-frames-links.html I think that Google could be assessing this page as a link scheme, ie: I-link-you-if-you-link me. I haven't received any messages from Google about this but I think the page may be devaluing my site. What do you guys~gals think? Thank you for any and all feedback Paul the Picture Framer
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Picframer0 -
Unnatural Link Profile
Hi All, We are about to take on a new client whose site has been penalised for having a very unnatural link profile. They have over 1k links, which have 5 differing anchor texts, though the majority leans towards one particular phrase. Their previous SEO company had done this for them and the strategy worked, keeping them in the top 3 for most phrases, until Penguin. Now they reside in the 70-100 ranks. My initial though is we need to get rid of a lot of these links, however its going to be labour intensive and as we all know, labour is expensive. The website is nicely designed and has lots of great unique content. Its just the link profile letting it down. My question is; If this were your client, what would you recommend? A link removal program which could take a long time and be very expensive or would you recommend that they start again and build a new site, also expensive and time consuming. or would you suggest something different? If anyone knows of any Link removal people who have done a good job in the past I'd love to get some contact details. Thanks Aran
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Chiefblob0 -
Infographic submission sites potentially offering paid links....
Good Morning/Afternoon fellow Mozzers, I recently created an infographic and am now looking to get it distributed via as many publications as possible. I discovered some great sites with collections of infographics.However I have discovered a multitude of sites offering to review and feature the infographic, or "express" submissions so the graphic features faster for a price..... links below. http://www.amazinginfographics.com/submit-infographics/ http://infographicjournal.com/submit-infographics/ 2 questions 1. Is this considered as buying links? My instincts say Yes. 2. Some sites offer mix of free and "express" paid submissions. If the answer to Q.1 is yes, should I avoid them all together even if my graphic gets picked up free? Thanks in advance for the feedback.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RobertChapman0 -
How to Remove Unwanted Links
I dropped like a rock in Google rankings on the 24<sup>th</sup>
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | rdominey
of April. After having to become familiar with Google webmaster tools and doing
allot of investigating I discovered that there is a website www.siteloki.com that has 6,742 links to my website. I have
tried to contact siteloki with no response. I tracked them on Whois to an
office suite in LA called the building to find that the suite listed is the
building management suite. I have had
the following sent to them via email, their contact page and posted on their website
forum and still no reply: Please take action to remove all links to this website
immediately! I have been notified by my client that your website has a
malicious attack using links from www.siteloki.com
against www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com. My client did not solicit these links, pay for these links or authorize any
third party to build links for them. They just appeared. The links are even
pointing to my client’s old website (same url). This is a big problem and I
don’t understand why these links exist. There are currently 6,471 links from
your domain. Please remove these links immediately or we will consider legal
action against your company. We have contacted Google on the behalf of our
client and informed them of this malicious act. I expect to see these links
removed immediately! Regards, I have submitted the site in the malware reporting section
of webmasters tools. I have searched but cannot find any documentation on how
to block this type of attack. It seems that Google failed to provide any means
for an honest website owner following the rules to block this type of attack and
as a result we have been unjustly penalized by Google with a drop to the bottom
in our page ranking. I would appreciate ANY HELP in removing these links and getting the Siteloki website blocked from linking to my website? Any Ideas?0