Is widget linkbaiting a bad idea now that webmasters are getting warnings of unnatural links?
-
I was reading this article about how many websites are being deindexed because of an unnatural linking profile and it got me thinking about some widgets that I have created. In the example given, a site was totally deindexed and the author believes the reason was because of multiple footer links from themes that they created.
I have one site that has a very popular widget that I offer to others to embed into their site. The embed code contains a line that says, "Tool provided by Site Name".
Now, it just so happens that my site name contains my main keyword. So, if I have hundreds of websites using this tool and linking back to me using the same anchor text, could Google see this as unnatural and possibly deindex me?
I have a few thoughts on what I should do but would love to hear your thoughts:
1. I could use a php script to provide one of several different anchor text options when giving my embed code.
2. I could change the embed code so that the anchor text is simply my domain name, ie www.mywebsitename.com rather than "my website name".
Thoughts?
-
I wouldn't worry too much if you are using your brand name or domain name then you are building natural links.
Personally, if you have different types of widgets then vary the anchor text / URL in the embed code for each.
-
This is exactly how I handle similar things. Any badges or widgets should either be branded with just your domain URL, or brand name. Looks natural, also looks better for the end-user (the people visiting the website that the badge/widget is in)
-
I know that people have gotten into trouble with Google when the widget contained links that were not visible to visitors of the websites that displays the widget.
For the attribution link, I would use my domain as anchor. That is how natural links are usually given. It is also much more powerful for your brand.
(Just personal opinion... I think that those link warnings are going out mainly to people who are involved in an organized link network or who are heavily spamming blogs and forums. I don't think think that a widget will cause problems.)
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
-
Link Getting Deleted for Few Days
If a link gets deleted for few days and re-appears... Will Google treat it as a "new link" or give it the same old link-age.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Akshayshr0 -
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 | | Deacyde0 -
If I am getting links on competitor websites, is it safe to assume those competitors are doing this to hurt our SEO?
We have received a few notification from Google Webmaster Tools and Moz that our competitors have "mentioned" our page on their website. This is incredibly odd as you wouldn't think they'd want to do this. Further, when I go to the page that we are supposedly mentioned on, the link to our site is not on the page. What is going on? Thank you in advance for your insights!!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | brits0 -
Is it ok to ask for a non reciprocal link
hey guys, got mini discussion question. With rapgenius.com getting penalized today, it raises some questions about linking. What they did is definitely not ok. A link scheme involving their own affiliate network is against Google guidelines for sure. So is it ok to ask for a non reciprocal link if there is no incentive involved and no money changes hands? ie. Someone writes an article related to your article topic, or they reference you without a link. Then uou email the webmaster requesting a link... They add it. Is this against the guidelines?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Anti-Alex0 -
Need advice on best strategy for removing these bad links.
Heres the scenario... We recently took on a new client who's previous seo company had partaken in some dodgy link building tactics. They appear to have done some blog comment spam, very poorly. The situation we are now in is this: We have a site with an internal page deemed more important than the homepage (the homepage has 60 linking root domains and the internal page 879). It looks as though the previous seo company submitted a disavow request, theres a message in webmaster tools from a few weeks back saying it had been received, but no further correspondence. I have doubts as to whether this disavow request was done correctly... Plus im not sure that Google has issued the site a warning yet as they are ranking position one for the keyword on the internal page. Our clients want us to handle this in the correct manner, whether it be to simply ignore it and wait for Google to send a warning about the links, remove the offending internal page and leave a 404, or try to disavow the links that google doesnt know about yet from 800+ websites. Suggestions for the best practice for dealing with this situation? Any advice is much appreciated, Thanks, Hayley.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Silkstream0 -
Links to partner sites
I have some partnerships in some portals, usually I put the banner of my company with a link to my site on a space partners. How should I proceed? To place the banner no link? To put the link nofollow? Can’t I do it? Don’t I need to worry about it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | soulmktpro0 -
How to Remove Unwanted Links
I dropped like a rock in Google rankings on the 24<sup>th</sup>
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | rdominey
of April. After having to become familiar with Google webmaster tools and doing
allot of investigating I discovered that there is a website www.siteloki.com that has 6,742 links to my website. I have
tried to contact siteloki with no response. I tracked them on Whois to an
office suite in LA called the building to find that the suite listed is the
building management suite. I have had
the following sent to them via email, their contact page and posted on their website
forum and still no reply: Please take action to remove all links to this website
immediately! I have been notified by my client that your website has a
malicious attack using links from www.siteloki.com
against www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com. My client did not solicit these links, pay for these links or authorize any
third party to build links for them. They just appeared. The links are even
pointing to my client’s old website (same url). This is a big problem and I
don’t understand why these links exist. There are currently 6,471 links from
your domain. Please remove these links immediately or we will consider legal
action against your company. We have contacted Google on the behalf of our
client and informed them of this malicious act. I expect to see these links
removed immediately! Regards, I have submitted the site in the malware reporting section
of webmasters tools. I have searched but cannot find any documentation on how
to block this type of attack. It seems that Google failed to provide any means
for an honest website owner following the rules to block this type of attack and
as a result we have been unjustly penalized by Google with a drop to the bottom
in our page ranking. I would appreciate ANY HELP in removing these links and getting the Siteloki website blocked from linking to my website? Any Ideas?0 -
Link Building: High Ranking Site vs. Relevancy
Hello, When link building, is it acceptable to link with a site that has high authority but has minimal relevancy to our site? For example, if we sell nutritional products and the link exchange would be with a site that relates to free coupons, would that work? Also, if we are publishing articles on other sites, should we also publish them on our own site? Should we add "nofollow" if we publish them in our site?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | odegi0