Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
One Way Links vs Two Way Links
-
Hi,
Was speaking to a client today and got asked how damaging two way links are. i.e. domaina.com links to domainb.com and domainb.com links back to domaina.com. I need a nice simple layman's explanation of if/how damaging they are compared to one way links. And please don't answer with you lose link juice as I have a job explaining link juice.... I am explaining things to a non techie!
Thank you!!
-
think about it, you pass PR to me and i'll pass PR to you. At the same time we'll tell Google we are in cahoots together.:(
The easiest way to explain it is that Google is that linking to other sites on your site might make Google think that you are selling links and could get you penalized, so as an SEO you have a rule to never link out to other sites unless they are trusted domains like Facebook, Twitter or G+ pages. And in those cases you are linking to your social media profile pages for the user and not for helping other sites rank better which is against Google's TOS.
There is information directly on Google's Webmaster Guidelines that you can provide to them. Sometimes people prefer to hear it directly from the horses mouth.
-
Link exchanges used to do a lot. These days not so much. You can still get a benefit from them, but you need to be careful. Don't use the same anchor text, try not to get sitewide footer links, and only do so with highly valuable partners.
I mean if you can get a DA 90 site to link back to your DA 13 site then yea a link exchange would probably benefit you a bit.
But overall 1 way links are the best way to go.
-
I guess the simplest way to explain that is that they cancel each other out so have no benefit.
Additionally, if used in excess with keyword anchor text they may have a negative impact (through skewing the anchor text ratios).
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
-
Footer no follow links
Just interested to know when putting links at the foot of the site some people use no-follow tags. I'm thinking about internal pages and social networks. Is this still necessary or is it an old-fashioned idea?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Breadcrumbs versus in context link
Hi, I remember reading that links within the text have more value than breadcrumbs links for example because in context links are surrounded by the right content (words) but google search engine optimisation starter guide says breadcrumbs are good, so which one is recommended ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Ecommerce: A product in multiple categories with a canonical to create a ‘cluster’ in one primary category Vs. a single listing at root level with dynamic breadcrumb.
OK – bear with me on this… I am working on some pretty large ecommerce websites (50,000 + products) where it is appropriate for some individual products to be placed within multiple categories / sub-categories. For example, a Red Polo T-shirt could be placed within: Men’s > T-shirts >
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AbsoluteDesign
Men’s > T-shirts > Red T-shirts
Men’s > T-shirts > Polo T-shirts
Men’s > Sale > T-shirts
Etc. We’re getting great organic results for our general T-shirt page (for example) by clustering creative content within its structure – Top 10 tips on wearing a t-shirt (obviously not, but you get the idea). My instinct tells me to replicate this with products too. So, of all the location mentioned above, make sure all polo shirts (no matter what colour) have a canonical set within Men’s > T-shirts > Polo T-shirts. The presumption is that this will help build the authority of the Polo T-shirts page – this obviously presumes “Polo Shirts” get more search volume than “Red T-shirts”. My presumption why this is the best option is because it is very difficult to manage, particularly with a large inventory. And, from experience, taking the time and being meticulous when it comes to SEO is the only way to achieve success. From an administration point of view, it is a lot easier to have all product URLs at the root level and develop a dynamic breadcrumb trail – so all roads can lead to that one instance of the product. There's No need for canonicals; no need for ecommerce managers to remember which primary category to assign product types to; keeping everything at root level also means there no reason to worry about redirects if product move from sub-category to sub-category etc. What do you think is the best approach? Do 1000s of canonicals and redirect look ‘messy’ to a search engine overtime? Any thoughts and insights greatly received.0 -
SEO Considerations for merging two brand website into one
Hello fellow Mozzers, We have two websites for two similar brands at my place of employment, the two brands currently serve slighly different products but could be held quite happily under one branded site. As part of a potential group merger into one sole brand, we will have to create one joined up website which will then feature all our products. The newly merged site will also have more scope to allow us to expand our product range where as currently one brand is kind of specific to a particular market due to its name. So as part of the Merge, I have to consider the potential implications for our search traffic, as this is an integral part of our business. Brand A - older, more authorative, great content, good organic positions - top 10 for pretty much all terms we favour. Brand B - younger, but has more marketing scope due to name, still good site and lots of content. Unfortunately Brand B has more in terms of potential lifespan, but is currently the less authorative of the two sites we run. it has lower DA and PR according to my Moz Analytics, a lower number of quality links and less content. In order to give the Brand B website the boost that is needed and in effect replace Brand A in the serps which has great organic positions, I need to make sure all bases are ticked for an action plan. So far this is what I have. Transfer all exisiting Brand A web pages to Brand B website. Rel canonical all Brand A pages to now point to Brand B websites new pages. 301 redirect all pages on Brand A to Brand B during the transfer. Once 301 redirects are in place then request external sites to actually repoint to Brand B website for any links. Update xml Sitemaps Update any content that mentions Brand B to now be Brand A. resubmit sitemaps to Webmaster tools Update all social profiles Update all local search profiles and listings Update all review sites with new brand name / merge any with both brands On a supplementary note for customer information, looking to also keep the older Brand A Home page up for a short time to help people understand the transition rather than a complete redirect which to our demographic could confuse and alienate people. Will also look to send a mass email to roughly 400K people informing them of the move abd how it affects them. I have no doubt there will be some glaringly obvious additions, any further advice would be much appreciated. Hope you are all well. Tim
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TimHolmes1 -
Wikipedia links - any value?
Hello everyone. We recently posted some of our research to Wikipedia as references in the "External Links" section. Our research is rigorous and has been referenced by a number of universities and libraries (an example: https://www.harborcompliance.com/information/company-suffixes.php). Anyway, I'm wondering if these Wikipedia links have any value beyond of course adding to the Wiki page's information. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Harbor_Compliance0 -
Link Research Tools - Detox Links
Hi, I was doing a little research on my link profile and came across a tool called "LinkRessearchTools.com". I bought a subscription and tried them out. Doing the report they advised a low risk but identified 78 Very High Risk to Deadly (are they venomous?) links, around 5% of total and advised removing them. They also advised of many suspicious and low risk links but these seem to be because they have no knowledge of them so default to a negative it seems. So before I do anything rash and start removing my Deadly links, I was wondering if anyone had a). used them and recommend them b). recommend detoxing removing the deadly links c). would there be any cases in which so called Deadly links being removed cause more problems than solve. Such as maintaining a normal looking profile as everyone would be likely to have bad links etc... (although my thinking may be out on that one...). What do you think? Adam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NaescentAdam0 -
Outbound link to PDF vs outbound link to page
If you're trying to create a site which is an information hub, obviously linking out to authoritative sites is a good idea. However, does linking to a PDF have the same effect? e.g Linking to Google's SEO starter guide PDF, as opposed to linking to a google article on SEO. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | underscorelive0 -
Site wide footer links vs. single link for websites we design
I’ve been running a web design business for the past 5 years, 90% or more of the websites we build have a “web design by” link in the footer which links back to us using just our brand name or the full “web design by brand name” anchor text. I’m fully aware that site-wide footer links arent doing me much good in terms of SEO, but what Im curious to know is could they be hurting me? More specifically I’m wondering if I should do anything about the existing links or change my ways for all new projects, currently we’re still rolling them out with the site-wide footer links. I know that all other things being equal (1 link from 10 domains > 10 links from 1 domain) but is (1 link from 10 domains > 100 links from 10 domains)? I’ve got a lot of branded anchor text, which balances out my exact match and partial match keyword anchors from other link building nicely. Another thing to consider is that we host many of our clients which means there are quite a few on the same server with a shared IP. Should I? 1.) Go back into as many of the sites as I can and remove the link from all pages except the home page or a decent PA sub page- keeping a single link from the domain. 2.) Leave all the old stuff alone but start using the single link method on new sites. 3.) Scratch the site credit and just insert an exact-match anchor link in the body of the home page and hide with with CSS like my top competitor seems to be doing quite successfully. (kidding of course.... but my competitor really is doing this.)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nbeske0
