Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Research & Trends
    3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    4. Footer Link in International Parent Company Websites Causing Penalty?

    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.

    Footer Link in International Parent Company Websites Causing Penalty?

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    4
    6
    1166
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • LeverSEO
      LeverSEO last edited by

      Still waiting to look at the analytics for the timeframe, but we do know that the top keyword dropped on or about April 23, 2012 from the #1 ranking in Google - something they had held for years, and traffic dropped over 15% that month and further slips since.

      Just looked at Google Webmaster Tools and see over 2.3MM backlinks from "sister" compainies from their footers.  One has over 700,000, the rest about 50,000 on average and all going to the home page, and all using the same anchor text, which is both a branded keyword, as well as a generic keyword, the same one they ranked #1 for. They are all "nofollows" but we are trying to confirm if the nofollow was before or after they got hit, but regardless, Google has found them.

      To also add, most of sites are from their international sites, so .de, .pl, .es, .nl and other Eurpean country extensions.

      Of course based on this, I would assume the footer links and timing, was result of the Penguin update and spam.

      The one issue, is that the other US "sister" companies listed in the same footer, did not see a drop, in fact some had increase traffic.  And one of them has the same issue with the brand name, where it is both a brand name and a generic keyword.  The only note that I will make about any of the other domains is that they do not drive the traffic this one used to. There is at least a 100,000+ visitor difference among the main site, and this additional sister sites also listed in the footer.

      I think I'm on the right track with the footer links, even though the other sites that have the same footer links do not seem to be suffering as much, but wanted to see if anyone else had a different opinion or theory.

      Thanks!
      Jen Davis

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • EGOL
        EGOL last edited by

        I would get rid of these links.

        I'll bet that very few people use them.

        They "should not" be the problem since they are "nofollowed".  However, you never know what google is doing.

        This massive number of links are going to evaporate a lot of pagerank.  No need to do that.

        If it was really important to link to these other sites I would make one internal page such as "about us" or "our international sites" and link to them on that one page with a followed link.  That link will be anchored with the domain name or the official company name.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Chris.Menke
          Chris.Menke @LeverSEO last edited by

          So it seems the link network became a weight around your neck, so to speak.  If you didn't receive an unnatural links warning in GWT then it was an algorithmic smack and if those links were, in fact, the issue, then you may just draw a new baseline at you current levels and start working your way up again from there.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • LeverSEO
            LeverSEO @Chris.Menke last edited by

            To answer your question the links are evenly distributed, not only to the us sites, but the other European sites as well.

            They are all selling the same industry products, although the site I'm talking about sells everything, the others are a smaller subset.

            In other words, if we use pet products as an example, the main site in question sells all, dog, cat, hamster, bird, etc.  Another of the US sites sells the same animal group products, but just less product offering.  The other US sites sell only specific animal products, so one is dog only, another one cat, etc.  The other European sites again sell other animal groups, but a smaller product offering again.

            And we have found that the links were followed before, the subsequently made them no follow after the loss.  All US sites are currently down in traffic over last year now.

            Chris.Menke 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Chris.Menke
              Chris.Menke last edited by

              Well, if they were all nofollowed, it would be hard to suspect that they were the problem.  Still, thatsalotta back links! I think it's interesting that the other US sites didn't take that  same hit and that some of their traffic increased--almost as though the links to the main site disappeared and the link juice consolidated on the remaining links to the other US sites.

              I've made a couple of mental guesses but there's just too much going on there without enough detail to put an educated guess down in writing.  I'd like to know if the links between the sister sites were spread evenly among all the sites, if the sites are all in the same market, and the outcome of the hunt to discover whether all the links were all nofollowed or not before taking a stab at it.

              LeverSEO 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • GregB123
                GregB123 last edited by

                Hi Jen. I'm curious to hear what answers you receive. Especially since they are NOFOLLOW links...

                My understanding is that NoFollow links do not effect ranking at all - whether they are good or bad or even all have the same anchor text. That is supposedly a featuire of Google's Disavow tool - it let's you turn bad links into NoFollow links and make them "disappear".

                I just spent many days working on a Disavow project, and the first thing we did to our spreadsheet of links was sort out and delete all the NoFollows. What a mess if we misunderstood the effects of NoFollows!

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • teamtc

                  Do links from subdomains pass the authority and link juice of main domain ?

                  Hi, There is a subdomain with a root domain's DA  90. I can earn a backlink from that subdomain. This subdomain is fresh with no traffic yet. Do I get the ranking boost and authority from the subdomain? Example: I can earn a do-follow link from **https://what-is-crm.netlify.app/ **but not from https://netlify.app

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | teamtc
                  0
                • maxcarnage

                  Hosting Multiple Websites Within The Same Server Space

                  Hi, So, I have a client who wants to host two websites (which you could refer to as sister sites) on the same hosting account. For some reason, I was under the impression that doing as much may be detrimental (for SEO purposes). Am I correct in thinking this? Can I get some back-up documentation or comments here? I look forward to hearing what you all have to say. Thanks for reading!

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maxcarnage
                  0
                • Deacyde

                  Backlinks in Footer - The good, the bad, the ugly.

                  I tried adding onto a question already listed, however that question stayed where it was and didn't go anywhere close to somewhere others would see it, since it was from 2012. I have a competitor who is completely new, just popped onto the SERPs in December 2015. Now I've wondered how they jumped up so fast without really much in the way of user content. Upon researching them, I saw they have 200 backlinks but 160 of them are from their parent company, and of all places coming from the footer of their parent company. So they get all of the pages of that domain, as backlinks. Everything I've read has told me not to do this, it's going to harm the site bad if anything will discount the links. I'm in no way interested in doing what they did, even if it resulted in page 1 ( which it has done for them ), since I believe that it's only a matter of time, and once that time comes, it won't be a 3 month recovery, it might be worse. What do you all think? My question or discussion is why hasn't this site been penalized yet, will they be penalized and if not, why wouldn't they be? **What is the good, bad and ugly of backlinks in the footer: ** Good Bad Ugly

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Deacyde
                  0
                • CayenneRed89

                  Advice needed! How to clear a website of a Wordpress Spam Link Injection Google penalty?

                  Hi Guys, I am currently working on website that has been penalised by Google for a spam link injection.  The website was hacked and 17,000 hidden links were injected. All the links have been removed and the site has subsequently been redesigned and re-built.  That was the easy part 🙂 The problems comes when I look on Webmaster.  Google is showing 1000's of internal spam links to the homepage and other pages within the site.  These pages do not actually exist as they were cleared along with all the other spam links. I do believe though this is causing problems with the websites rankings.  Certain pages are not ranking on Google and the homepage keyword rankings are fluctuating massively. I have reviewed the website's external links and these are all fine. Does anyone have any experience of this and can provide any recommendations / advice for clearing the site from Google penalty? Thanks, Duncan

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CayenneRed89
                  0
                • mickburkesnr

                  Dealing with links to your domain that the previous owner set up

                  Hey everyone, I rebranded my company at the end of last year from a name that was fairly unique but sounded like I cleaned headstones instead of building websites. I opted for a name that I liked, it reflected my heritage - however it also seems to be quite common. Anyway, I registered the domain name as it was available as the previous owner's company had been wound up. It's only been in the last week or two where I've managed to have a website on that domain and I've been tracking it's progress through Moz, Google & Bing Webmaster tools. Both the webmaster tools are reporting back that my site triggers 404 errors for some specific links. However, I don't have or have never used those links before. I think the previous owner might have created the links before he went bust. My question is in two parts. The first part is how do I find out what websites are linking to me with these broken URL's, and the second is will these 404'ing links affect my SEO? Thanks!

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mickburkesnr
                  0
                • mcany

                  Cross linking websites of the same company, is it a good idea

                  As a user I think it is beneficial because those websites are segmented to answer to each customer needs, so I wonder if I should continue to do it or avoid it as much as possible if it damages rankings...

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mcany
                  0
                • Amjath

                  Link Building using Badges

                  In light of penguin update, is link building using badges(like "I love SEOMOZ" badge) still considered a white hat tactic? I have read old posts on SEOMOZ blog about this topic and wondering if this method is still effective. Look forward to feedback from MOZers.

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Amjath
                  0
                • RonMedlin

                  Does anyone have any suggestions on removing spammy links?

                  I have some clients that recently got hit by "Penguin" they have several less than desireable backlinks that could be the issue?  Does anyone have any suggestions on getting these removed?  What are the odds that a webmaster on these spammy sites are going to remove them, and is it worth the time and effort?

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RonMedlin
                  3

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.