SEO value in multiple backlinks from same domain and from various sub-domains.
-
-
A site has a link to my site as one of their main tabs, which means whenever a user clicks through to another page within the site, my link - being a main tab - is there. This creates thousands of links from this site. How does Google treat this? Do we have a rough formula estimate. In other words, assume it creates 1,000 backlinks would the SEO value be around the same as if I had just 2 link total as a main tab, but on 2 different non-related sites? Or, does it actually count fully as 1,000 links?
-
Links from various sub-domains. Several .EDU's are linking to my site. Different schools within the overall same university. Example: nursing.abc.edu links to my site, but so does business.abc.edu. For SEO does that count as much as if I had links from complete non-related universities, or would Google evaluate that these links are related (since same main domain) and that will discount any links more than 1 to some extent? If discounted, then what do we estimate the discount to be?
thank yoyu
-
-
Agreed. Thanks Cody.
-
If it had a good reason to be there, and you had a decent link profile, then you are probably safe. Even so, I'd say try to limit them to relevant pages.
The real question, though, is how much traffic is driving? If it is driving a lot of good traffic that converts, then you pretty much have to leave it there.
-
Cody, I would like to hear your opinion, but in Kristian's case, I would not think removing these site wide links would be a good idea, unless the links are spammy. Especially if the website has a good reason to be there (ex: it is a good resource, it is a sponsor, it si the parent company, etc.). As long as not all of the links in Kristian's backlink profile are site wide, I wouldn't link the website is at risk of a penalty. Also, I would not think removing a site wide link on an .edu site would be a good idea, just becuase all of the referral traffic potential.
Like I said, the site wide penalty seemed more geared to a web designer or hosting company that only have site wide links in their profile.
Cody, what do you think?
-
Even prior to reading that I would agree with your analysis. 2 links from separate domains are better than 2 links from the same root domain.
-
This article talks about a website that received the Penguin penalty, and was able to start recovering by reducing the amount of site wide links: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2180722/Google-Penguin-1.1-Pushed-Out-As-Some-Sites-Report-Recovery
"A) Remove all of the crap sitewide links, weird anchors first, B) continue building good links and C) take advantage of press by pinging Danny Sullivan to try and get it featured on SEL to get in front of Google. Obviously A) was not going to be completely possible so I was going for "remove most of your crappy links."
So, I do believe that site wide links are bad, and that it would be better to limit the number of links. Also, here is a reference about the diminishing returns on several links from one domain: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-link-based-spam-analysis-techniques
"The first link from a domain carries the first vote and getting additional links from one particular domain will continue to increase the total value from a domain, but only to a point. Eventually inbound links from the same domain will continue to experience diminishing returns. Going from 1 link to 3 links from a domain will have more of an effect than 101 links to 103 links."
-
Kristian,
There is not really a downside to having a link on multiple page's of a website. You just can't expect all of these links to be counted a independent,and equal to a website with a link profile that has a wide variety of linking root domains.
I would not recommend removing any links on these website. I would just focus your time on getting links from other of root domains.
-
Here is a recent article in published in Search Engine Journal about subdomains and subpages, as they relate to SEO:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/subdomains-or-subfolders-which-are-better-for-seo/6849/
It looks like Cody is right, Google does recognize them has seperate, but a recent tweak in Google's algorithim, now cause them to be recognized as being associated with each other.
I would think that this means a link from a subdoamin and a root domain would not be equal to two links from two different root domains.
Cody, thanks for you insight, and I would love to hear what you think?
-
- it sounds like you think there could be downside in having this many links. Again, it is from a main tab on their homepage, and since the main tabs follow on all pages, so does my website link. I understand if the site linked to my site from different locations (main tab, in article, footer etc etc) that looks odd. But since it is from a main tab that creates thousands of links I can't understand why that could be a negative.
-
-
To answer your first question, it does count all the links. However, there is a massive diminishing return for anything over 2 links on one site. So, having 1,000 links from one site would not be beneficial. Instead, have them change it so you get one link on their top two pages, and none anywhere else. You can use Opensiteexplorer.org and the top landing pages tab to find which two pages to request a link from.
-
A sub-domain is a separate site, and would therefor have its own ranking ecosystem. Even a www.abc.edu is a sub-domain of abc.edu. So, getting a link from a sub-domain would be as beneficial, everything else being equal, as getting it from the root domain. Just make sure it's just a link or two, and not site wide like you suggested you currently have.
-
-
thank you. This does make sense and I appreciate the insight. I am still curious if anyone may have even more specific insight on the matter. It would be interesting to know how much the SEO value gets reduced in both cases
-
These links do not count as 1,000 links from 1,000 seperate website, since Google does recognize linking root domains.
The most important link to your website would be from the page with the highest page authority, which is almost always the home page.
I am not 100% sure, but I remember reading about a recent Google algorithm update that targets multiple links from one domain. Web design firms were affected, since they typcally sign the footer, which creates a link on every page of the website.
The subdomain, works similar to a subpage. Google will notice the root dominan, which is abc.edu.
I do not think you are at risk of a penalty or anything like that, but if you want to continue to increase your rankings, once you get a link from a domain, I would focus my efforts on getting another link from a separate root domain, instead of a link from a subpage or subdomain from the same root domain.
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
-
Lightboxes and SEO
Do lightboxes (AKA popup boxes when you click "learn more" type CTAs) have any negative effect on SEO? We are looking at revamping our sites to have more of a tiled approach, and a lightbox with summary content popping out with additional CTAs, directing to pages with more information or free trial pages. Is there any downside to this approach from an organic perspective? is there anything specific to keep in mind when creating these if not?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris81980 -
Using a Sub Domain as a Main Domain?
Hi, I'm working on a site at the moment and the sub domain is acting as the main domain. This occurred when the site was redesigned and built on a sub domain for testing but it was never moved to the main domain when it went live (a couple of years ago). So little or no pages are live on domain.com but all on sub.domain.com. It's a large company but they have very poor rankings. Would you recommend that they move the sub domain back into the root folder? Does this involve renaming/re-pointing URLs? Thanks Louise
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MVIreland1 -
Anyone actually getting a noticeable SEO boost from a Bitly or TinyURL backlink?
Hi, I'm looking for an example/use case of someone whose site has been linked to from another using a Bitly, or other generic URL shortener link. I'm specifically interested in proving/disproving the value of the backlink in terms of boost in SEO rankings. Ideally you somehow got a juicy backlink from a reputable site, but they accidentally linked to you using a Bitly or something, yet you saw a noticeable increase in your pages search rankings, thus proving the value of a Bitly link still passing all SEO value. Or alternatively, you got that juicy backlink and noticed nothing at all, or not much, and are frustrated that they used a BItly. I'm launching a study on this soon to identify the possible value behind short links as backlinks. Yes, I know that Matt Cutts says all short links are 301 redirects which passes something like 99.9% of link juice. I'd just like to see some use cases on this. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rebrandly0 -
Mobile friendly - Sub domain after responsive?
My client has a mobile website (m.website.com) and is working on a responsive website. The site is already labeled "Mobile friendly" on the SERP and I was wondering if, when the site will be responsive, it would be worth it to redirect the subdomain or it would be safer to keep the subdomain and still redirect mobile users to it since we're already Mobile friendly (we would keep the rel alternate on the main domain and the rel canonical on mobile).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Digitics0 -
Domain Forwarding - SEO Impacts?
I have a site that has been active for years - thinkbiglearnsmart.com. Awhile ago I had purchased about 50 domain names that were relevant to my company. I still have those urls and would like to use them to point to different pages on my site - just because they have good key words in the URLs. For example - one is dreamweavertrainingclassesonlinelive.com. Currently they are all redirecting to my homepage. A. is that hurting me? B. I would like to redirect to the more relevant page. ie the page dedicated to Dreamweaver training (http://thinkbiglearnsmart.com/dreamweaver-creative-cloud-training-course/ ) Will this hurt my Dreamweaver keyword for example because there is already a 301 redirect on that page from a very old Dreamweaver link which was something like thinkbiglearnsmart.com/dreamweaver C. On my hosting account where I can select where the URL forwards to - it has an option for "Location forwarding" and "Frame forwarding" - currently they are set to Frame forwarding - which one is best? Any help is much appreciated!!! Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webbmason0 -
Images and SEO
Hi, I would like some opinions on the topic of using images for SEO. I have come across a few sites that I see have very few backlinks, but have decent pagerank and seem to rank well for certain keywords. One such site I looked at had very little content other than tons of images (It was a joke blog that focussed on funny images, funny pics etc) and now I am starting to question whether hotlinking images assists in SEO? are there any benefits to having someone using one of your images (hosted on your site) ? I do recall reading somewhere that someone hotlinking an image is akin to a link. Any truth in this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rightmove0 -
Get value out of buying another domain
How do you transfer value from another domain to your domain? Specific scenario: I'm a new startup selling coffee online. A large online coffee retailer just shut it's doors and asked us to bid on its remaining assets, including their domain. It currently receives 20,000 unique visitors organically. If I were to purchase their domain, how would I use this domain to make my site rank better in search engines and drive traffic to my site? Links? 301 redirects? Or would it not really make a significant difference?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MistoBox0 -
Link building maximum to different sub domains?
Hi All, I'm launching a new website with a number of country specific sub-domains and I wanted to know if Google will calculate the number of new links as a root domain or if it will treat each subdomain seperately? For instance if I built 50 links per month to each of my five proposed subdomains would google see it as 250 links built to one root domain(and penalise me as a result) or will they view these subdomains independantly and accept these 50 links per page as an acceptable amount per sub domain. Thanks in advance. Ross
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mulith0