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.
Agency footer link, do we keep it ?
-
Hello !
I was wondering if it's still a good idea to let a do-follow link on the bottom of agency released websites.
Because they obvisouly come from different websites with no link with a web marketing agency.
- Do we have to keep them in the footer in no-follow ?
- If we do so, how to get some link juice from the different websites ?
It sounds a bit stupid but one of my partners went from PR7 to PR5 recently. I guess Penguin 2.0 did not like all its links from its customers' website.
Tks a lot !
-
Mum ... I never really looked this as a problem until the last Google updates.
So if I got it properly:
- Keeping one link on the home may not hurt my website (now)
- Keeping the footer link on all website would be the last thing to do
- Keeping the link in nofollow can bring me some new customers (now) and penalize my site soon
I think I'm going for the nofollow option now.
What do you think ?
-
Short answers: Don't do it.
Chris did a great job at explaining why as well.
Having said that, if the agency is a highly respected an ethical agency, then you could consider it, but nine out of 10 times, they won't be, so I'd advise removing the links.
-
There was an interesting discussion related to this sometime back on Google Groups. https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/webmasters/pX0sI1KOnTM/60MmAnGN5fsJ
The conclusion I would say is that you can link from the client websites, but make sure you do not stuff keywords in the anchor text. As long as someone is linking with the brand name, it shouldn't have any issues.
-
While those footer links back to the agency that created the website used to be commonplace and sought after, it's shaky ground today--even just one or two no-followed links from a client's site could get you in trouble--in the future.
Today, a followed link or two from the footer of a client's home page and another one from some an interior page (each link having different, non-exact match anchor text) may still provide your site some advantage--and that's the problem. Using those links to your advantage may help your authority in the present but you shouldn't be surprised if that authority is stripped at some point in the future. You know what it looks like when authority is stripped? A penalty.
If you are still getting a followed footer link or two from each of your clients, that shouldn't be your only means of building authority--it should be a supplemental means. You really need to work just as hard as any other site in any other industry to build editorial links back to your site in order that you not suffer an authority adjustment down the road.
The best practice is to nofollow those links in order to prevent them from giving you problems in the future.
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
-
Sub-domain with spammy content and links: Any impact on main website rankings?
Hi all, One of our sub-domains is forums. Our users will be discussing about our product and many related things. But some of the users in forum are adding a lot of spammy content everyday. I just wonder whether this scenario is ruining our ranking efforts of main website? A sub domain with spammy content really kills the ranking of main website? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Can 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?
E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
Ecommerce SEO: Is it bad to link to product/category pages directly from content pages?
Hi ! In Moz' Whiteboard friday video Headline Writing and Title Tag SEO in a Clickbait World, Rand is talking about (among other things) best practices related to linking between search, clickbait and conversion pages. For a client of ours, a cosmetics and make-up retailer, we are planning to build content pages around related keywords, for example video, pictures and text about make-up and fashion in order to best target and capture search traffic related to make-up that is prevalent earlier in the costumer journey. Among other things, we plan to use these content pages to link directly to some of the products. For example a content piece about how to achieve full lashes will to link to particular mascaras and/or the mascara category) Things is, in the Whiteboard video Rand Says:
Algorithm Updates | | Inevo
_"..So your click-bait piece, a lot of times with click-bait pieces they're going to perform worse if you go over and try and link directly to your conversion page, because it looks like you're trying to sell people something. That's not what plays on Facebook, on Twitter, on social media in general. What plays is, "Hey, this is just entertainment, and I can just visit this piece and it's fun and funny and interesting." _ Does this mean linking directly to products pages (or category pages) from content pages is bad? Will Google think that, since we are also trying to sell something with the same piece of content, we do not deserve to rank that well on the content, and won't be considered that relevant for a search query where people are looking for make-up tips and make-up guides? Also.. is there any difference between linking from content to categories vs. products? ..I mean, a category page is not a conversion page the same way a products page is. Looking forward to your answers 🙂0 -
How much link juice does a sites homepage pass to inner pages and influence inner page rankings?
Hi, I have a question regarding the power of internal links and how much link juice they pass, and how they influence search engine ranking positions. If we take the example of an ecommerce store that sells kites. Scenario 1 It can be assumed that it is easier for the kite ecommerce store to earn links to its homepage from writing great content on its blog, as any blogger that will link to the content will likely use the site name, and homepage as anchor text. So if we follow this through, then it can be assumed that there will eventually be a large number of high quality backlinks pointing to the sites homepage from various high authority blogs that love the content being posted on the sites blog. The question is how much link juice does this homepage pass to the category pages, and from the category pages then to the product pages, and what influence does this have on rankings? I ask because I have seen strong ecommerce sites with very strong DA or domain PR but with no backlinks to the product page/category page that are being ranked in the top 10 of search results often, for the respective category and product pages. It therefore leads me to assume that internal links must have a strong determiner on search rankings... Could it therefore also be assumed that a site with a PR of 5 and no links to a specific product page, would rank higher than a site with a PR of 1 but with 100 links pointing to the specific product page? Assuming they were both trying to rank for the same product keyword, and all other factors were equal. Ie. neither of them built spammy links or over optimised anchor text? Scenario 2 Does internal linking work both ways? Whereas in my above example I spoke about the homepage carrying link juice downward to the inner category and product pages. Can a powerful inner page carry link juice upward to category pages and then the homepage. For example, say the blogger who liked the kite stores blog content piece linked directly to the blog content piece from his site and the kite store blog content piece was hosted on www.xxxxxxx.com/blog/blogcontentpiece As authority links are being built to this blog content piece page from other bloggers linking to it, will it then pass link juice up to the main blog category page, and then the kite sites main homepage? And if there is a link with relevant anchor text as part of the blog content piece will this cause the link juice flowing upwards to be stronger? I know the above is quite winded, but I couldn't find anywhere that explains the power of internal linking on SERP's... Look forward to your replies on this....
Algorithm Updates | | sanj50500 -
Dofollow Links on Press Releases: Good or Bad?
Hello, I know that Google says that you are supposed to make anchored text links nofollow on press releases, but what about just putting the site url itself (example.com) and making it dofollow? Is that okay?
Algorithm Updates | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Should I link to competitors?
Hi, I was wondering: we work in an extremely competitive market. There are 6 companies, offering the same service in my country: price comparison in a niche market. The competitors have hundreds of different websites, using iframe-techniques. Would it be helpful for me to link to those 6 competitors, in a piece of content about our company strategies, USP's and overview of the market? From a transparency point of view, i would prefer telling my visitors there are other competitors, which are undoubtedly performing very well, but we perform better on several aspects of the price comparison. On the other hand, my competitors benefit from the backlinks as well. Is my gain bigger than the gain of my competitors do you think? Has anyone tested this once?
Algorithm Updates | | Beekhuizen1 -
How do you block incoming links to your site?
With the new update to google focusing on link spam and multiple anchor text ? If you have incoming links that you would like to block or make no follow?
Algorithm Updates | | HelpingHandNetwork1 -
Sub-Links of Organic SERP
I would like to know if you can modify (or suggest) the sub-links under an organic listing. For Example: Main Link/Title = COMPANY NAME - What We Do.... Sub-Links (popular pages within site) currently include links like: Locations / Catalog Request / Bestsellers Is it possible to suggest other pages as sub-links or do the search engines determine these? Please advise, and thanks in advance....
Algorithm Updates | | WhiteCap0