Footer backlinks for sites I've developed
-
I link back to my website via my company name on the footers of sites I develop. Lately I've been changing this to my keyword and mixing and matching. This has been done for new sites I create and old sites
I've not seen any benefit so far after a couple of months.
Most my clients are hosted on the same server as my main site that it links back to.
1. Is this a bad idea to link back on the same IP?
2. Is footer backlinks to the main developer going to annoy Google?
3. Should I change my main site's server, will it help?All my competitors seem to do it and as far as I can tell they seem to get better results than I do. Because I'm now changing them the reason I see no benefit?
Thanks
-
Will it cause harm? Not likely. If Google suspects the links aren't kosher, it will probably just ignore (or "devalue") the links.
As to whether it is a shady or manipulative practice - debatable. From my perspective, I don't quite see how it is all that different from a company linking to its partners, suppliers, or customers. The link represents a business relationship, and that relationship has value. If I have a client in the position to get these kinds of links, for me it's a no brainer - get 'em. At the very worst, they have no impact SEO-wise, but help with branding and referral traffic. Google's perspective may differ.
As to why the practice might not be working out so well for you - do you run linkbuilding campaigns for the websites you develop? Does anybody? Do many of the websites share a C class address?
A bunch of links from websites with weak backlink profiles or the same C class addresses won't take you very far.
BONUS - a few linkbuilding tactics guaranteed to work:
- Submitting your website to high quality, relevant directories
- Running a guest blogging campaign on a number of influential web design blogs
- Creating TRULY engaging and unique content and promote it via social media
-
@EGOL, I wholeheartedly agree. If it is an expectation, it should be shared in advance with the quote.
@Kiran, there is not necessarily anything to do other then have your expectations set these links offer little if any value.
-
What will best solution in this case. i have 400 link back from same IP. many from footer
-
I think that if done in a large scale these could provide a bit of value for a website if you could do it to a scale as GoDaddy recently has. Otherwise it is generally not going to add much value.
-
Thanks!
That's why designer/developer links will never appear in the footer of any of my sites.
If the designer/developer expects these links it should be part of the discussion before any design contract is written... and they should feel free to quote a higher priced option for the work being done without the expectation of a link in the footer.
-
Under anything remotely normal, it is highly unlikely a search engine would consider a "website developed by EGOL Design" as a paid link. If a site owner tried a footer of "[website development], [website design], [graphic artwork], [seo] and other work performed by ABC Enterprises" where each term in brackets was a link, that clearly steps to the spammy side.
Even then I wouldn't necessarily call it paid links, but manipulative links which falls into the same category.
-
Do you think that keyword links in the footer of a site might look like paid links?
-
Can we have keyword at footer to link back to our site devolved.
-
It is a common practice for a site's developer to provide a self-promoting footer link in the site's they develop. There is no harm in doing so. You should not expect any noticeable value from the link either.
The entire concept of a valued link is an "independent vote". More specifically, it is a natural link which a user chose to provide. Links from sites you develop or host on your server are not chosen by the site owner. You choose to place the link. You could argue the site owner could choose to opt-out, but that is a another matter.
Google offers very low value to links in footers. Google also offers a lower value to site-wide links. Google also devalues links from sites on the same server. The bottom line is these links are not earned and you should not expect any value from search engines for them. If you build a high quality site then adding a footer link may occasionally earn your site a visit from someone interested in having their site developed. That needs to be enough for you.
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
-
Have you changed 100's of links on your site? Tell me the why's, the how's and what's!
Hello there. If you've changed 100's of links, then I'd like for you to contribute to this thread. I've created a new URL structure for a website with 500+ posts in an effort to make it more user friendly, and more accessible to crawlers. I was just about to pull the trigger, when I started reading up on the subject and found that I might have a few surprises waiting for me around the corner. The status of my site. 500 posts 10 different categories 50+ tags No Backlinks No recent hits (according to Google Analytics) No rankings. I'm going to keep roughly 75% of the posts, and put them in different (new) categories to strengthen SEO for the topic which I'd like to rank multiple categories for, and also sorted a list with content which I'd like to 410. Created new structure created new categories Compiled list of old URLs, and new URLs New H1, Meta Title & Descriptions New tags It looks simple on paper, but I've got problems executing it. **Question 1. **What do I need to keep in mind when deleting posts, categories, and tags - besides 410, Google URL removal? Question 2. What do I do with all the old posts that I am going to re-direct? Each post has between 10-15 internal links. I've started manually removing each link in old posts before 301'ing them. The reason I'm doing this is control the UX, as well as internal link juice to strengthen main categories. Am I on the right path? On a side note, I've prepared for the 301'ing by changing the H1's, meta data and adding alt text to images. But I can't help but to think that just deleting the old posts, and copying over the content to the new url (with the original dates set) would be a better alternative. Any contribution to this thread would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Web Design | | Dan-Louis1 -
I have a site that has a 302 redirect loop on the home page (www.oncologynurseadvisor.com) i
i am trying to do an audit on it using screaming frog and the 302 stops it. My dev team says it is to discourage Non Human Traffic and that the bots will not see it. Is there any way around this or what can I tell the dev team that shows them it is not working as they state.
Web Design | | HayMktVT0 -
Without Keyword Info From Google - How do we re-do a site not knowing what to keep?
Bit of a riddle I am trying to figure out here... I have a client that receives some visits via organic searches (around 700). Most of which are to the homepage. The client isn't actively targeting any keywords yet (on purpose) and the homepage doesn't have much on it. I've been hired to do keyword research and re-develop the site but this is the first site I've done since google really put the hurt on keyword information. My worry is that without knowing what keywords people are using currently to search and find the site, I will be potentially deleting information that is bringing in traffic. Looking at the traffic and other keywords I can view I think the keywords are branded which makes it a bit easier but again, it is a bit worrisome, not so much for this client but for future work. Anyone have any ideas other than looking at webmaster tools and landing pages?
Web Design | | JoshBowers20120 -
New site or fix the old one
I have a delima. Basically the main business product I used to offer is not going to be offered anymore. The types of sales events we conducted for auto dealerships are not able to be insured any longer forcing the change. So I am pivoting to just offering direct mail and I plan on going into digital probably social, landing pages, content marketing and not sure what else. I was able to register http:www.roiautos.com and www.roidirectmail.com both variations of www.roiautosolutions.com withc was the original site. Also that is the closest to the actual name of the business. My question is whether to build a site focusing on direct mail using the direct mail dot com, or just to redo the current site. The current site doesn't have much rank if any because the old product was not something that was searched for. As a mater of fact 99% of my business came from referrals and word or mouth so I just never really bothered. My thoughts are that ROI Direct Mail will work better for search and I am even going to use that as a DBA and TM. But I am unsure of what to do for search. One thing that has to happen is that all references to offering staffed sales events have to be removed from any site per my insurance company. Any advice?
Web Design | | roiautos0 -
Build New Site Without Losing Rankings
Good morning SEOmoz community. I have a question which I am pretty sure I already know the answer to, however i thought I would reach out to my fellow experts to see if anyone had some great advice. I would really like to give my website a makeover. i have two thoughts on this, one is to scrap the site completely and start fresh, the other would be to only change it visually, but keep all the content and on-page optimization. I am terrified of losing my rankings. I am ranked position 1 and 2 for highly competitive terms and have another 15 - 20 keywords on page 1. Any advice would be tremendously appreciated!!!
Web Design | | WebbyNabler0 -
What reason would scrapers, and syndication sites outrank all of our content?
Typing in any of our titles for content, scrapers and content syndication sites all outrank us by quite a bit. What is the main reason for this usually? I started noticing this happening quite a bit this year, and think maybe it has to do with panda. Has anyone figured out the reasoning?
Web Design | | upbuiltgames0 -
Site Activity, SEO, and behind login
I have a site that provides online education and as such, most of the user activity happens behind a login. This has me thinking about potential SEO impacts with a few questions that maybe someone could lend some light on: How important is activity (above just search activity) to the search engines Would it help to enter these pages, even though they're behind a login, into GA as we have with the front-end of the site Does a subdomain make a difference (right now we implement the course as a subdomain of the main site Lastly, as I was looking at compete.com, I am wondering how they get these use statistics?
Web Design | | uwaim20120 -
How can the Web site designer and the SEO strategist work together peacefully?
The organization I work for has decided to re-design or re-develop the existing company Web site. My part in this project is to come up with new features to add to the site, as well as making the site SEO-friendly (copywriting, link-building, keyword research, etc.). I don’t know a thing about Web site design, coding, format, etc., and I guess I will have to work with a designer on this project. How would I go about finding a Web site designer? Should they have some SEO knowledge? How much designer, coding and site structure knowledge should I have? And how do we not infringe on one another as we work together? (Sorry so many questions.)
Web Design | | Obie0