Links to Website Author
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I'm a website developer, and in the past I have usually added a tiny backlink to the footer of my clients' websites like this:
Website Design by MyCompanyName
I understand that Google sees this as a low-quality backlink. However, I was wondering if such links can hurt my rankings. Does Penguin sees these links as spam? If so, should I add a rel="nofollow" to the links? Is there anything else I should change?
I do not want to remove these links completely because they are good for marketing my business. I just want to minimize any negative SEO impact of the links.
I appreciate your input. Thanks.
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George provided a great link.
You certainly need to be aware of the amount of links and anchor text you are putting out in the world. I believe Cyrus Shepard mentioned a very good alternative to carpet bombing footer links inside a template you made
"... instead of a footer link, how about a single, well placed editorial link somewhere on a real page? (this might be hard to manage with some of your clients, but it's worth a shot).."
I like this option because I am personally of the impression that if you are paid to develop a website then you should also be up front about any other benefit you receive by doing so, and a link (advertisement) is certainly a benefit to you. This could and should IMO be negotiated in a professional manner with the client. Now if you are just selling templates ala template monster or a similar site, then I would remove my name from it period. Since you can't control what happens to the template after it is downloaded.
Hope that helps.
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Hello! Here's another similar question that has been answered:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/google-penguin-question-re-footer-links
Personally, I would continue using your brand name and just remove the keywords. Others may feel differently, but I like to continue marketing my brand and a link with my brand name is going to be more natural than exact match anchor text for the keywords I'm targeting.
Here's what I would do:
Website designed by Brand Name
Hope this helps!
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