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.
Site URL called out but not clickable.
-
Hi - I'm after a bit of clarity; if my site URL is referenced in an article, but doesn't actually link through, does this still 'add value' to my seo efforts? Thanks, David
-
My guess is that Google is recognizing a branded entity in these types of searches but I'd also guess that mentions play into it.
-
I believe that mentions are valuable. if you are a manufacturer who has products listed and described on lots of sites these mentions will pile up to huge numbers.
Seeing weak manufacturers outranking heavyweight sites makes be believe that mentions are driving rankings.
-
Excellent, it does make a lot of sense!
-
The references listed by Branagan and Mike are good. I have personally seen Google Webmaster Tools list external links that were simply URL citations without a <a href="">tag involved, so Google absolutely looks at these and probably factors them in to the algorithm somehow. I'm fairly certain there is no answer to how much they count compared to a normal link and what value they pass.</a>
<a href="">It's pretty easy to reach out and ask the author to add a link. Just be really nice about it and there's a 50% chance you'll get it. If not, no worries, move on and acquire some new links. Unfortunately it comes with the territory. We had a client get their domain mentioned on PCWorld.com last month without a backlink. It sucks, but all you can do is ask nicely and hope they throw you a bone.</a>
-
Rand talks about co-occurrence/co-citation in this WBF video.
He gives some great examples of how this can potentially increase rankings. It is a very interesting video.
Hope this helps.
Mike
-
I don't know if there's a definitive answer on this, since it's effects wouldn't be easy to measure, but if you think about it, it makes sense that it should be taken into account to some extent, and if not, at least users would be able to learn about your site.
Off course, as regular links do, I guess it would depend on the context, relevance, and reputation of the page where the mention takes place.
Also, from a branding point of view, it would be positive (again, depending on the context), it seems one of the functions of the new SEOmoz Fresh Web Explorer is precisely to find out about mentions.
Check out this post where they carried out an experiment about the subject and also cite Matt Cutt's reponse to the question (although very old): http://dejanseo.com.au/seo-experiment-with-non-link-references/
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
-
How to handle pre-existing backlinks on new site.
Hi - We built a new site on a URL that had previously been used. We are noticing a lot of spammy backlinks pointing to our current site and ending up on a 404 page. Any recommendations on how to handle this?
Link Building | | JJKM551 -
My Site DA did not increase Even My DR is 33
HI Moz Community, I have a little issue about my site DA. My site has more than 100 strong backlinks but still my Domain authority is less than 20 But on the other hand Ahrefs show my site Domain rating is 30+. So i have a question is how can I increase my site Domain authority?
Link Building | | Jiouereniou0 -
Should backlink URLs include www, https, or both???
My business is located at remotebaba.com, and I am wanting several sites to link to it.
Link Building | | udaipabla
I am only interested in home page at this point, and we are using HTTPS for our site. Which one of these should I have other sites link to (Please provide complete justification):
remotebaba.com (my root domain)
www.remotebaba.com
https://remotebaba.com
https://www.remotebaba.com I really appreciate your help!1 -
URL parameters affecting link juice
I have a couple of quirks in my online shop that I'm ironing out. One of them is adding some URL parameters to product links.ie: website.com/product.html?&cat=0&featured=Y If someone links to this URL, will I get the link juice as if it was website.com/product.html ? I have URL parameters in Webmaster Tools and robots.txt set up to ignore them so they're not in the Google index, but I have found a few websites that have linked to us using these longer URL's and I'm wondering whether to write to them and ask them if they mind changing them or not.
Link Building | | sparrowdog0 -
Web Designers and SEOs using backlinks from client sites
What are your thoughts on SEOs and web designers putting their own links in the footers of client sites. For the sake of argument, lets assume that the client is happy for the link to be there. I'm referring to the SEO merits of the link being there from an 'irrelevant' website. My belief is that this goes against what Google is looking for and that these are irrelevant links and likely to be picked up and penalised. That's what I believe! However, I see lots of sites offering SEO services that have dofollow links from their client sites, using exact match anchor text and they are all ranking highly. Is it just a matter of time before Google sniffs them out and penalises them for it? Or should I be going through my client sites and adding myself a dofollow link in the footer? (with their permission of course). The highest ranking sites in any UK city do this. If you search SEO Manchester, SEO Leeds etc and find the top ranking sites and check them out on opensite explorer, they are all using a disproportionate amount of dofollow backlinks form client sites.
Link Building | | littlesthobo0 -
Top 20 sites for backlinking
My security jobs website was doing very well in Search engines until the penguin got hold of me. I don't profess to be at pro at SEO however seem to have a knack of getting sites to rank well. I think I made some basic mistakes with the original security jobs website, to many links to soon, so I have started again and will build up slowly the backlinks quality rather than quantity this time. My questions is what are the top 20 or so sites that are good to backlink from?
Link Building | | SecJobs0 -
Linking strategy between my own sites
Hi, I have one main site, let's call it food.com I also have 10 smaller sites, let's call them mexicanfood.com, indianfood.com, italianfood.com etc food.com is on its own separate dedicated server the 10 smaller sites are all on a shared IP in hostgator I don't want Google to think that I have created the 10 sites for only purpose of creating links to each other. So, would you recommend that all those 10 sites link to each other? or should there be no interlinking within those 10 same IP domains? What about linking from those 10 sites to my main site? How should I structure my own backlinks not to get penalized by Google ?
Link Building | | limens0 -
Press Release Sites for Backlinks
OK, I read a previous thread about whether people found press release sites useful (specifically I am considering a reputable pay for release service). I understand the knock on press releases in this digital age (namely that no one reads them and arguably never did . . . ), but I was interested in moving the discussion in a different direction . . . Do press releases services really help a sites performance based on increased backlinking? Is there a SEO benefit to PR services? My company is a local print company. I've done quite a bit of research on my local competitors, and specifically for a couple products we would like to dominate. The good news is that it looks like the hurdle would not be terribly high to really take over the web presence with a well planned and executed website/SEO campaign. My inclination is that for a relatively small company like mine (dealing with relatively small competitors) it WOULD benefit me to pay for the sheer number of backlinks a PR program would generate. The monthly cost is frankly about the same as the cost of this site, which OF COURSE I get value from (hey moderator, how about a couple extra MOZ points for that one!) Specifically, I am looking at this for myself, but feel free to expand the question to the broader topic.
Link Building | | damon12121