Footer Links For Web Design Agencies - Bad?
-
So today Google have updated their Webmaster Guidelines and they have drawn particular attention to their update relating to Link Schemes. http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356
Unless you have had your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears since February then most people are aware of the types of link schemes that the updated is refering to but there is one area that isn't so black and white for me.
"Here are a few common examples of unnatural links that violate our guidelines: Widely distributed links in the footers of various sites"
We are a design agency and we design and build lots of websites for our clients. It is pretty standard practice for agencies to add a credit to the footer of websites and we pick up a lot of work from people that see a site that they like and click through the footer link to our site.
Our footer credit is standard on all of the websites that we create:-
Website by Teapot Creative
Only the 'Teapot Creative' part of the credit is anchor text so we are only linking using our brand name with no intention of manipulating search results.
Is this going to hurt us? or will the fact that we are only linking using our branded term and without any SEO intent keep us in the clear?
Thanks.
Ade. -
Hi Ade,
Just thought I would chip in here.
Our website took a huge hit during the Penguin update for this (to the point where we now are moving the domain to a different one). The reason for this was that every website we made had footer text going to our website and they were all hosted on the same server, with the same blocks.
We removed nearly all of them and it seemed that the initial damage was too much to recover from. All of our websites were spam free and we only linked via branded keywords, so I think the IP issue is really important here.
We have made it standard practice from now on to set up all new sites on dedicated IP addresses.
Hope this is of some use.
Matt.
-
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for your thoughts, I have spoken to several other SEO's and everyone seems to be of the opinion that we are pretty safe.
None of the websites that we have built are in any way spammy, they are generally business websites belonging to SMEs with, as you guessed, very few outbound links.
Your comment about IPblock is something that I hadn't considered. All of these sites are on our own server and so all have the same IP block.
Thanks again.
Ade. -
I think you hit the nail on the head -- the anchor text is a branded term with not much competition. Also, the sites that you design probably do not have that many outbound links (much less spammy outbound links). Because of those 2 reasons, I think that you will continue to be fine (you could always put a no follow attribute on the link).
One thing to also consider is if all the sites are on one IP block, it may be considered a link-farm and could hurt.
Would be interested in hearing other's opinion on this.
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
-
Have you changed 100's of links on your site? Tell me the why's, the how's and what's!
Hello there. If you've changed 100's of links, then I'd like for you to contribute to this thread. I've created a new URL structure for a website with 500+ posts in an effort to make it more user friendly, and more accessible to crawlers. I was just about to pull the trigger, when I started reading up on the subject and found that I might have a few surprises waiting for me around the corner. The status of my site. 500 posts 10 different categories 50+ tags No Backlinks No recent hits (according to Google Analytics) No rankings. I'm going to keep roughly 75% of the posts, and put them in different (new) categories to strengthen SEO for the topic which I'd like to rank multiple categories for, and also sorted a list with content which I'd like to 410. Created new structure created new categories Compiled list of old URLs, and new URLs New H1, Meta Title & Descriptions New tags It looks simple on paper, but I've got problems executing it. **Question 1. **What do I need to keep in mind when deleting posts, categories, and tags - besides 410, Google URL removal? Question 2. What do I do with all the old posts that I am going to re-direct? Each post has between 10-15 internal links. I've started manually removing each link in old posts before 301'ing them. The reason I'm doing this is control the UX, as well as internal link juice to strengthen main categories. Am I on the right path? On a side note, I've prepared for the 301'ing by changing the H1's, meta data and adding alt text to images. But I can't help but to think that just deleting the old posts, and copying over the content to the new url (with the original dates set) would be a better alternative. Any contribution to this thread would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Web Design | | Dan-Louis1 -
Internally linked pages from different subdomain must be well optimised?
Hi all, We have guide/help pages from different subdomain (help.website.com). And we have linked these from 3rd hierarchy level pages of our website (website.com/folder1/topic2). But help.website sumdomain & pages are not well optimised. So, I am not sure linking these subdomain pages from our website pages hurts our rankings? Thanks,
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Https pages indexed but all web pages are http - please can you offer some help?
Dear Moz Community, Please could you see what you think and offer some definite steps or advice.. I contacted the host provider and his initial thought was that WordPress was causing the https problem ?: eg when an https version of a page is called, things like videos and media don't always show up. A SSL certificate that is attached to a website, can allow pages to load over https. The host said that there is no active configured SSL it's just waiting as part of the hosting package just in case, but I found that the SSL certificate is still showing up during a crawl.It's important to eliminate the https problem before external backlinks link to any of the unwanted https pages that are currently indexed. Luckily I haven't started any intense backlinking work yet, and any links I have posted in search land have all been http version.I checked a few more url's to see if it’s necessary to create a permanent redirect from https to http. For example, I tried requesting domain.co.uk using the https:// and the https:// page loaded instead of redirecting automatically to http prefix version. I know that if I am automatically redirected to the http:// version of the page, then that is the way it should be. Search engines and visitors will stay on the http version of the site and not get lost anywhere in https. This also helps to eliminate duplicate content and to preserve link juice. What are your thoughts regarding that?As I understand it, most server configurations should redirect by default when https isn’t configured, and from my experience I’ve seen cases where pages requested via https return the default server page, a 404 error, or duplicate content. So I'm confused as to where to take this.One suggestion would be to disable all https since there is no need to have any traces to SSL when the site is even crawled ?. I don't want to enable https in the htaccess only to then create a https to http rewrite rule; https shouldn't even be a crawlable function of the site at all.RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{HTTPS} offor to disable the SSL completely for now until it becomes a necessity for the website.I would really welcome your thoughts as I'm really stuck as to what to do for the best, short term and long term.Kind Regards
Web Design | | SEOguy10 -
Pageless/Single Page Design and Migration Questions
Hello, We are starting a content audit and migration to a new CMS. We would like to take content and present more on a pageless/Single Page type design instead of having visitors drill down so many levels to find the content. What should we be aware of from an SEO perspective. Here is Example of current pages and structure: http://www.saintpetershcs.com/GraduateMedicalEducation/PediatricResidency/
Web Design | | sphcs
Subpages include: Overview, Curriculum, Faculty, Residents, Benefits, How to APply Here is example of what we would like to do:
http://themeforest.net/item/medicalpress-health-and-medical-wordpress-theme/full_screen_preview/7789703 As you scroll information is populated: Duke Medicine also has something similar. https://www.dukemedicine.org/treatments/cancer What are your thoughts?0 -
Spanish website indexed in English, redirect to spanish or english version if i do a new website design?
Hi MOZ users, i have this problem. We have a website in Spanish Language but Google crawls it on English (it is not important the reasons). We re made the entire website and now we are planning the move. The new website will have different language versions, english, spanish and portuguese. Somebody tells me that we have to redirect the old urls (crawled on english) to the new english versions, not to the spanish (the real language of the firsts). Example: URL1 Language: Spanish - Crawled on English --> redirect to Language English version. the other option will be redirect to the spanish new version, which the visitor is waiting to find. URL1 Language: Spanish - Crawled on English --> redirect to Language Spanish version. What do you think? Which is the better option?
Web Design | | NachoRetta0 -
Link colour on page?
I always thought that the link colour has to be different from text colour? I have come across a site http://www.printandpackaging.co.uk/ and it has made me question this belief, they seem to only have bolded the link which would be very nice if this is fine.
Web Design | | BobAnderson0 -
Does Google follow links inside a <noscript>tag?</noscript>
I'm looking at making an embedable calculator and asking users to embed it to their website. I had the idea of using javascript to include the calculator which would also conatain a text link back to my site in order to gain some back links. If it's possible Google won't see the link (as they may not execute the javascript), is it safe to place the link in the <noscript>tag? If so, Will it be indexed and will Page Rank be passed?</span></p> <p>Thanks in advance for your answers. </p> <p>Anthony</p> <p><span style="color: #5e5e5e;"><br /></span></p></noscript>
Web Design | | BallyhooLtd0 -
Where to find high quality (affordable) web designers?
Hi everyone, I am looking for find high quality web designers that are affordable. I am open to many options. There are several things I have looked into. 1. I have looked for designers via CSS galleries, but I don't really know how to get in touch with designers or find them. Rand recently talked about this in a webinar, but if anyone has specific insights on how to find people this way, please let me know. 2. I have also looked into website design contests from sites such as: DesignCrowd.com 99designs.com CrowdSpring.com DesignContest.com I haven't used these services and I was wondering if anyone has experience with design contests. 3. I have looked into the option of hiring a freelancer on oDesk or a similar freelancer site. I don't really know the cost, how to find a good designer, how to avoid inexperienced but cheap designers and all the other such roadblocks that come along with freelancers. If anyone could provide insight into this, it would be greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | alexhoug0