Site-wide Footer Link on Client/Friend Website - Dangerous?
-
Hi Guys,
I've got a friend / client / business associate who's website I helped develop. It's a three letter dot-com, so good trust, and an eCommerce site, so lot's of pages.
When I launched my new site about 6 weeks ago I put "Official IT Partner of MySite.com" in the footer. No keywords in the anchor text, just the domain URL...
There are no other external links like that on the site whatsoever, and I haven't been hit by Penguin. I'm ranking well for local targeted keywords a few weeks after launch, and traffic continues to increase...
I am worried that Google will see this is unnatural, but I've received no warning or experienced any decline in rankings. There's about 2800 pages linking from the site to my site, all in the footer of course.
Would it be better to remove the link from the footer and add it just to the home page and a couple of other high authority pages, or should I leave it be. It's not "unnatural", I am affiliated with the site and work in partnership with the site, but it does fit that profile.
I'm thinking about removing the footer link and adding a small graphic on the home page of the linking site which links to my root domain, with a couple of broad keyword anchored links in a description underneath that also link to relevant pages on my site...
What do you think?
2800 links w/ my URL as anchor text from high Domain Authority / Low Page Authority pages (the homepage and a few other pages have decent authority) to my root domain
OR
Three different links from one High DA/ High PA homepage (one image alt, two anchored w/ broad keywords) to three different pages on my site.
Again, there are no other site-wide external links on the domain, and I'm pretty sure I escaped the Penguin.
Looking forward to hearing the different points of view.
Thanks,
Anthony
-
Hi Anthony,
I would love to hear how you got on? what decision did you make and did it have an impact?
I am facing the same dilemma as yourself. My theory is site wide brand text links or URL links should be fine however, its just theory, I have nothing to back this up.
Before I make a decision on the matter I would love to hear your take on it.
Regards
Gav
-
Hi again Egol,
The site that the links are pointing to is actually my own site and the linking domain is my friend / business associate's. I do know about Penguin and Panda, and my link profile is pretty clean. I haven't employed any black-hat methods. When I launched the site, about six weeks ago, I needed to compete quickly, and having the only external site-wide link on a high trust domain seemed like it would help. That was pre-Penguin though, and I can see how it would look unnatural. My traffic has gone up since the 24th, so I don't think I was penalized, though some of my competitors were.
That's what's confusing me a little bit about Penguin Advertising is natural in business, and companies that are affiliated often "refer" potential clients to the each other. That's basically what I did. I help him with SEO and marketing, and he didn't mind that I added a link to my new site in the footer to help me out. There's nothing unnatural or dishonest about it, but it does make me nervous. It's not like a blogroll or link bank though, there are no other outbound links on the site, and we're both Atlanta based businesses, so there's some contextual similarity, and it doesn't look spammy.
Still, I think I'll play it safe and just add two or three links w/ a little graphic on the home page of the linking site. Do you agree that's a better/safer idea?
-
I am worried that Google will see this is unnatural,
Does your friend know about Penguin, Panda, etc. and understand what they are about?
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
-
How can I tell if my site was impacted by the March 2019 Core Update?
I am trying to determine if my website was impacted by the March 2019 Core Update. Based on the various articles I have been reading, I do not believe my niche (software) was impacted. I see a very small tick up on search console and google analytics, but it is well within the normal range. Where else should I be looking to see if we were impacted? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | NikCall1 -
Any risks involved in redirecting low quality Infringement website?
Hi all, Recently we have over taken one of the websites (with Trademark Infringement )who been using our domain name in their domain. That website got no traffic or backlinks. Is there any risk involved in redirecting that website to our website? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Help Me Change My Client's Mind
My client wants to build a second site to provide targeted links for SEO to his main site. He's interested in buying a TLD with some near topic authority/links and then build the second site's authority up from there. He is clear that this could get him in trouble for a link scheme, but thinks it can all be hidden from Google. Off the top of my head I was able to recall a few of the pain-in-the-neck things you'd have to do to not get caught, but he seemed unconvinced. I recall you'd have to have: Different registrar Different contact/WhoIs Different site host Different G/A, GWT Logging into second's site's G/A, GWT with different IP address not used for main domain With the exception of the last one, he didn't seem to think it would be too hard. Aren't there more difficult maneuvers required for hiding this from Google? I want to be able to point out to him how ridiculous this low integrity effort will be, without losing the client. Thanks! Best... Darcy
Algorithm Updates | | 945010 -
How to content marketing: Should my blog posts link to my sales page?
Hi, I've been doing a weekly blog making sure that each blog post contains my money keywords in the text, sometimes in h2 tags etc. My blog posts never contain any links to my actual sales page. Should I link each blog post to my sale page or is it overdoing it? Will internal linking of all my blog posts to my sales page will improve its page authority or have any SEO benefits? What about using exact match anchor text on these internal links? I couldn't find any resource online about this matter. Thank you for your opinion and help! -Marc
Algorithm Updates | | marcandre0 -
How on earth is a site with ONE LINK ranking so well for a competitive keyword?
Ok, so I'm sure you get the gist of what I'm asking about in my question. The query is 'diy kitchens' in Google UK and the website is kitchens4diy[dot]com - which is ranking in third from my viewing. The thing is, the site has just ONE BACKLINK and has done for a good while. Yet, it's ranking really well. What gives?
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
Yoast SEO plugin and Weak Links
The plugin has what I thought was a great feature. My main site is often scrapped and I thought 'well at least we're getting a Link out of it' - due to the RSS feature of Yoast's Wordpress SEO plugin (you can add a link to the bottom of your RSS feeds). Now Google is talking about Links from weak/crap sites and how they may impact your rankings. So - with this in mind.. Do we want links from scrappers? Are we now better off discontinuing the usage of this feature? I imagine there may be varying opinions on this so I'll open it as a discussion... thanks
Algorithm Updates | | TheHockeyWriters0 -
How do I rank higher in Bing/Yahoo?
We are doing really well across the board on Google, but having issues in ranking with Bing and Yahoo. What is different between the three search engines? I have read a few articles that Bing is happier with Flash, and they are more interested in Top Level Domain links, but what else is different? In Google we are sitting on page one for most terms, but are page 2-3 in Bing/Yahoo for the exact same terms. Any help would be appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | FVdBeuken0 -
Google removing pages from Index for Panda effected sites?
We have several clients that we took over from other SEO firms in the last 6 months. We are seeing an odd trend. Links are disappearing from the reports. Not just the SEOmoz reports, but all the back link reports we use. Also... sites that pre Panda would show up as a citation or link, have not been showing up. Many are these are not Indexed, and are on large common Y.P or other type sites. Any one think Google is removing pages from the Index on sites based on Panda. Yours in all curiosity. PS ( we are not large enough to produce quantity data on this.)
Algorithm Updates | | MBayes0