Should You Link Back from Client's Website?
-
We had a discussion in the office today, about if it can help or hurt you to link back to your site from one that you optimize, host, or manage.
A few ideas that were mentioned:
HURT:
1. The website is not directly related to your niche, therefore Google will treat it as a link exchange or spammy link.
2. Links back to you are often not surrounded by related text about your services, and looks out of place to users and Search Engines.HELP:
1. On good (higher PR, reputable domain) domains, a link back can add authority, even if the site is not directly related to your services.
2. Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose.So, what do you think? Test results would be appreciated, as we are trying to get real data. Benefits and cons if you have an opinion.
-
Hi everyone
We have read through all these comments, but still not sure what to do about this. We do church web design, and our link would be on church websites. That seems relevant to me.
These responses go back to 2014. Is there any current advice or information on this topic?
Thanks:-)
-
As someone who used to work at a company on the Recommended list (and who was in charge of the Contact form) - we did get leads. They were about 80% appropriate for the business model, although a lot were too small or wanting short-term projects (my agency generally took on corporate-level accounts for long periods of time). I would say that this sort of linking is different to just linking to clients, e.g. if we then went on to link to an insurance company that came to us through a Moz Recommended referral. But if your SEO company partners with a PPC agency or design firm, provides some services to the other and sends out a relevant link, that seems a little more relevant.
On the other hand, I hate these discussions about what we're "allowed" to link to
-
Under No Circumstances do I see this to be something you should do. I often advise clients to get any link which isn't giving value to the user off the site ASAP.
Often that includes "Site created by ..." Lowest of the low I'm afraid.
So that's a No from me!
-
People who come to Moz are in the same niche as the recommended companies. It'd be way different if I had the same link at the bottom of my site that's about model battleships.
-
I'd think -- or hope! -- that Google Penguin or something else would stop that result at some point.
-
I hear a potential YouMoz post?
Footer links may not refer a lot of valuable traffic. But other types of pages could. For example: I'm sure the businesses that are on Moz's recommended list get leads. Pages with similar types of (no-follow) links could do the same (rather than footer links).
-
Only robots who don't buy anything.
-
To be honest, I doubt anyone really gets much referral business from footer links no follow or not. It clearly a way of getting authority high pr links for free.
-
I'd love to see a case study from a firm talking about the amount of traffic they get from these links, and if it turns into any leads or sales for them.
-
Ive seen a company in Glasgow that does this to the extreme. In fact they rank for "seo glasgow" and their link profile is made up of all footer links. seo by seo glasgow and they rank well. web design by "web design glasgow" etc
-
Yes, that is better.... but you will only be able to do it on websites that tolerate unpaid advertising.
-
Thumbed-up for being what I would do!
-
What about something like : "Site design By Company Link" that is no-follow? That way you can get direct traffic but doesnt pass link juice?
-
With owner permission "having your name on the site in unlinked text" seems the best to do.
I remember the penalty story of 'Web Design Yorkshire by Pinpoint Designs' - http://moz.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-google-penalty-removal
<greyhat>Need to vary anchor text if you do it :).</greyhat>
-
CNN, Tribune, and other big companies often have both in-house people and agencies. I know people who are at (or were at) both CNN and the Tribune who are in-house SEOs who work with contracted agencies.
-
I would advise against it for one simple reason: You would be directly violating Google's guidelines and setting both you and your clients up for potential penalties.
Google states: Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.
If you actively build a do-follow link on another site for the purposes of affecting search results, then you are doing exactly this.
-
CNN, WJS, Today, and ESPN have their own in-house team of developers and designers. i think that's not a good example.
Having a link to your website from a client website as you say yes is a good advertising as a web developer agency or hosting company. they are outsourcing services which means to them less head ache and saving money because they don't have to buy a server or have a full time in-house developer and SEO specialist which from my point will be a fair trade of having the companies link on their website as well as sometimes the agencies put their clients links on their websites as success stories or current customers.
-
Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose.
My answer on this has nothing to do with SEO.
It has to do with where I believe the role of a service provider is supposed to begin and end.
I personally think that SEOs linking back to their own sites from a client site is low form. The SEO is supposed to be helping the client not siphoning his power. You could accomplish that visibility by simply having your name on the site in unlinked text. Adding a link is unnecessary and greedy.
When I see those links on other sites, I do find it to be useful information. I know who I would not hire.
Honestly, if an SEO or designer or hosting provider wanted to put a link on my site I would tell him "no" nicely. If they argued or pressed for it my consideration of his company would be concluded. The link is not necessary for attribution.
If an SEO or hosting company wanted to have their name at the bottom of my site without the link I would tell them how much it would cost to advertise there. The value of that advertising would probably exceed the value of the service that they provided.
If you go to a big brand site such as CNN, WSJ, Today, ESPN, you don't see links to SEOs, hosting or designers. They are not being billboards for their service providers.
My displeasure on this is extremely strong against SEOs and hosting providers. For designers I can understand why they ask. For a designer, if I am exceedingly pleased with what they have done I might list them on the "about us" page, where I mention a few people who have contributed to the content of the site. Why the designer? Because they improved what people see and that includes matching the design to my content or complimenting it.
I have different views when it comes to photographs, graphics, videos. I always name the creator of those content assets and often link to their website in the caption. Why? Because they are a content source and my visitors might want to see more of their work. It is similar to a reference link on a Wikipedia article. Those links are useful to the visitors. Even if I paid them a license fee, I mention them and usually link to them (the only exception is with a thumbnail, but that thumbnail always links to an article where their photo is prominent and with attribution and usually a link). I give them attribution because I want to help them. They usually have sites that are less visible than mine. And I want them to feel that the got back more than they gave.
My site is not about SEO or about hosting or design. So a link to those sites is not useful to my visitor, so it really should not be there.
-
We never place a link without the site owners permission.
-
Just to be clear, are you going to ask for the client's permission first?
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
-
Is a Link Wheel Safe If I Control the Wheel?
Hi, folks. Our company operates over 50 disease-specific, nice websites. Currently, we're building resource/landing pages for some therapies and other related topics. One experimental therapy is being investigated across four different disease types: cystic fibrosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Hemophilia, and cancers. We have sites for all of them, and have created original landing pages for each site. Question: is it safe / does it make sense to "link wheel" these pages, especially since the wheel is composed of all our own sites? The other option of course is to simply interlink all of them, but will I get more visibility with a cyclical linking scheme? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Michael_Nace1 -
How to gain links to this site
Hello, How would you suggest I gain backlinks for bobweikel.com in light of all present and future Google updates? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Lots of websites copied my original content from my own website, what should I do?
1. Should I ask them to remove and replace the content with their unique and original content? 2. Should I ask them to link to the URL where the original content is located? 3. Should I use a tool to easily track these "copycat" sites and automatically add links from their site to my site? Thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | esiow20130 -
Goddady's Domain Masking and 301's
I have a client who's 7 domains and single website (instantpages®) exists within the clutches of GoDaddy. They own 6 kewyord rich domain names that 301 redirect with masking to the main branded domain. In effect, what this provides is the ability to add a title tag and meta description for a keyword rich domain name that displays content through an iframe. So really it's not duplicate content but this practice sets off my spidey sense that this is not a best practice regarding SEO. I want to suggest for the client to drop the idea of masking and do a straight 301 redirect to main branded domain. I'm sure that is fine but these domains are Not similar variations but actually vary widely: massage-city.com, city-massage.com, city-acupuncture.com, acupuncture-city.com, city-chiropractic.com, chiropractic-city.com etc ---- Doesn't Google frown on redirecting 6 domains to a single domain if they vary widely? Words of wisdom appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | superZj0 -
IS there such a thing as a Link Juice Viewer?
Hi, I am managing the tech and SEO for an ecommerce site with a big mega menu with over 140 cats/subcats and well, I know that my link juice is diluted and am thinking of cutting back on the categories but in the meantime. Is there a link juice visualizer? How can I see in a visual format how linkjuice is flowing through the site? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bjs20100 -
Removing Unnatural Link Penalties
As soon as I began working in my current position at my current company I noticed my predecessor's tendency towards buying link packages from blackhat companies... I knew we were being penalized, and had to prove to him that we needed to halt those campaigns immediately and try our darndest to remove all poison links from the internet. I did convince him and began the process. There was 57% of our backlinks tied to the same anchor phrase with 836 domains linking to the same phrase, same page. Today there are 643 of those links remaining. So I have hit a large number of them, but not nearly enough. So now I am getting messages from Google announcing that our site has been hit with an unnatural link penalty. I haven't really seen the results of this yet in the keywords I am trying to rank for, but fear it will hurt very soon and know that I could be doing better in the meantime. I really don't know what to do next. I've tried the whole "contact the webmasters" technique and maybe have had 1/100 agree to remove our links. They all want money or don't respond.. Do I really need to use this Disavow tool?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jesse-landry
I hear mixed things about it.. Anybody with experience here like to share their stories? Thanks for the moral support!0 -
Have I created link spam.....
Howdy fellow Mozzers.... Since Googles Penguin Update I am overly cautious when reviewing our link profile. I spotted 2 domains linking to us yesterday, 80+ links from each domain to our homepage. This looked superstitious, site wide links effectively. At first inspection I couldn't spot the links....they turned out to be two individual comments, but as the site had a plugin with "most recent comments", 1 link became 80. The link is an exact match of the individuals name who made the comment. And is a result of filling out the comment form. Name: Website: Comment: By filling out the name and website the name becomes the anchor text for the link to the website. Long story short...do you think this is penguin esq. link spam? Is it not? Or is it just not worth the risk and remove them anyway???
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RobertChapman0 -
Feedback on link building idea
We came up with this idea at work for a client but before I initiate it I was wanting to get feedback on if this would be considered whitehat and alright to use. It is for an ecommerce site. On the order confirmation and thank you page (not email cause they are on some old system that does not send out emails) we are wanting to put a thank you for your order message and continue with a statement about how they can save money on future purchases with a link that takes them to a page with info on how to do so. That new page will have info about linking to the site from a blog or website. And will say if you link back to us and send us an email with that link as proof we will give you a promo code for your next purchase. Is this alright?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | webfeatseo0