Sitewide links - nofollow or delete?

[McTaggart]

Hi, I've just come across a website with 3 sitewide links. I was thinking of adding nofollow but then thought, well, is that the best option? From an SEO perspective is it better to actually delete those links? Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[irvingw]

Oh without a doubt delete them. If you nofollow them you're safe from a linking perspective, but it's still throwing away that page juice, just not passing it to the site.

If it's a sponsored theme you're using there is a possibility that it's an encrypted footer that will break the template if you try to edit or remove the link and you might need to do a little detective work on how to work around that, if that is the case.

[McTaggart]

Hi Irving. Links on site I'm managing pointing to web developer sites. Yes, wasn't sure if nofollow would make enough of a difference, so think I'll delete them. Thanks, Luke

[irvingw]

wait are these your links (links pointing to your site on other sites) or links on your sites pointing to web developer sites?

If your sites then delete them, you're leaking PR from your site, even if you nofollow them.

[McTaggart]

Thanks for the advice. The answers are no, no, no and I have absolutely no idea why web developers are still doing this! They're just links back to developer, etc. so I'm tempted to simply add nofollow tags - but will that be enough to deal with Google's issues surrounding footer tags?

[Bryan_Loconto]

If the site wide liks are helpful to the user, branded and nor anchored with gaming text it can be followed. However, if the links are not helpful to the user I would not add them.

1)Start with relevancy... Will this link help anyone?   Y or N

2)Is this page quality? do they follow best Search engine practices(Panda/Penguin)?  Y on N

3)Are they active? do they have any social media interaction?  Y on N

If all three are yes then get the link. I would recommend using a no follow tag if the link is below the footer. If the link is above the footer and all three of the above are yes then you can link it.

Only use an exact anchor if it looks right for the user, otherwise use your brand. Tip: I would use the brand just to be safe and keep the exact key phrases around the link. Search engines read around the link as well.