Footer anchors question
-
A few months ago, we changed the anchors in all of our websites footers to rel="nofollow". We did this so we could drop the possibility of getting hit by the penguin update. So first, we had anchors in the template of every website that read something along the lines of "web design by bluetone media". This was on every page, so we quickly changed every link in our footers to nofollows so it would show Google that we were using that space for mainly branding purposes, instead of stealing juice from clients. However, after monitoring our link analysis, we have severely dropped in domain authority, domain moztrust, domain mozrank and more. I believe this is due to the lack of followed links, so would it be best to go back and remove all of the links from the templates of our websites and just leave the dofollow links on the homepages of our websites, or just wait it out and see what happens. This crazy decline in domain authority has only recently happened, should I expect a bounce back soon?
-
Keep in mind that our metrics (including MozRank, DA, and PA) don't measure the risk of Google devaluing or penalizing your link profile. By no-following these links, your raw inbound link equity will go down, and it will impact our metrics if those links made up a large portion of your profile.
On the other hand, that doesn't mean that it's the wrong thing to do. Taken to extreme, these kinds of footer links are getting increasingly risky. Unfortunately, mitigating that risk does mean losing any positive impact of those links. It's not an easy decision, and it may be painful in the short-term, but you're betting that short-term pain against the risk of long-term catastrophe.
Whether that's the right decision for your site today is a tough call (and certainly one we can't make without details), and I'm assuming you had good reason to make it. I wouldn't worry too much about our metrics, and I'd focus instead on the impact on your actual rankings and traffic (especially traffic that converts). Don't reverse the decision too lightly, because switching back and forth can also send negative signals to Google.
-
The way I see it that a link on the footer of a client site is like you said "stealing juice from clients". It not a true citation like google really wants to see.
Read this: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2259674/Penguin-2.0-Forewarning-The-Google-Perspective-on-Links
Your clients are not currently recommending you, you are recommending yourself by putting a link in their footer. Sure you will get link juice but you also might get penalty. I would instead remove the links from the footer (not a great place for links) and instead ask them to write an honest review of you in their plan, or on a supplier page, their about us page, or some other suitable page.
-
Our rankings are starting to take a slight dip and yes, I was thinking about removing all of the links, except the homepage links and I would turn those homepage links back into dofollow links that point to our site.
Thanks for the quick responses!
-
I would keep them as do follow and just brand with your company name. Don't use any keywords such as web design. You will not be penalized for a branding anchor text of your company name, unless your company names is 'shoes' and at that point why would you need to do any seo work
-
Has your rankings dropped as well?
And when you say "so would it be best to go back and remove all of the links from the templates of our websites and just leave the dofollow links on the homepages of our websites" do you mean leave a link to bluetone media on just the homepage of your client sites and not other sites you 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
-
Question about influencers
Hello, Can a twitter, facebook, linkedin or instagram business page be considered an influencer Or Does an influencer need to absolutely be a person ? Thank you,
Branding | | seoanalytics1 -
My question is in regards to possible conflict in creating an additional website under a new domain for our company.
Our companies, Vulcan Information Packaging and ATC both live under the domain “www.binders.com”. This is a great thing as far as us dominating in the binder industry. However, in the next 2-3 years and forward, we want to build our presence as a company who offers packaging products such as boxes, marketing kits, and other forms of packaging. Obviously, the “binders.com” brand/domain does not contribute much to this effort and can be confusing to customers visiting the site. Essentially, we want to build an additional branding for our company in the packaging industry. Keeping this in mind, we own the domain “www.vulcaninformationpackaging.com” and we are considering building a new website using this domain which contains the word “packaging”. This new site would only promote and contain packaging related products. This new website will advertise and direct traffic to our company Vulcan Information Packaging, which is the same company “binders.com” directs traffic to. So my question is to determine whether doing this might be a practice that Google and other search engines might frown upon. I tend to think it will be fine because we will be promoting and driving traffic for non-binder products where as, binders.com is heavily in binder related products. thank you, Dominic Zaidan
Branding | | dzaidan0 -
Unpublishing content question
Hi there, a disgruntled ex-employee requested that my company (a large publisher) unpublish a large number of at this point fairly dated articles. We're going to honor his request. The traffic numbers to these articles aren't significant, but I wanted to understand the SEO ramifications. Two questions: 1. These articles in sum account for 0.51% of site traffic. Will removing them outright cut off just that chunk of traffic? Or will it also affect search rankings for all of our remaining articles? 2. How should we handle unpublished URLs? Is it better to redirect the user to our homepage or a friendly, recirculation-oriented 404?
Branding | | TheaterMania0 -
Revisited: The subdomain vs subdirectory question
This has been much discussed before, but I would like to bring it up again in a specific content. I was wondering what people think about choosing between the two (subdomain vs subdirectory), when adding new 'channels' to a digital media platform. The two examples that I have are both very smart companies, that very recently went different route for the same challenge. I'd like to hear some pro's/con''s and any input you might have! The exapmles are: Vice: the main site is Vice.com, and they have begun to add a ton of new 'channals' or topically specific content (e.g. news.vice.com, noisey.vice.com, munchies.vice.com etc). Mic: the main site is Mic.com and they have been adding new channels in sub-directories: mic.com/arts, mic.com/world, mic.com/music Thanks!!
Branding | | stacksnew1 -
Google+ Page Question
When we do a search in Google for our brand name like this "google+ whiteboard creations" we see 2 different G+ pages: 1) https://plus.google.com/b/104564843813332206907/ and 2) https://plus.google.com/+WhiteboardCreations/ #2 is our real one which we are trying to promote, grow, etc, etc. However, I'm not sure where the other one came from. Did Google create it? We have the option to "Delete Page" in the settings, but unsure if it will delete the real page we actively manage. Has anyone else had this issue with multiple pages? Any advice as get into G+ more and more? Thanks in advance everyone! - Patrick
Branding | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
Moving to new domain - Social and Branding Questions?
Hi, We are moving to a new domain because our rankings drastically dropped and we want to "start over". For example - If my company is called Joes Computers and the domain was JoesComputers.com and the new domain which will hold our e-commerce website will be completely different for example - BestComputers.com - which do I brand? Which do I put as suffix in all titles?
Branding | | BeytzNet
COOL TITLE FOR PRODUCTS | Best Computers
or
COOL TITLE FOR PRODUCTS | Joes Computers Which name do I take for social profiles? Company or Domain?
(We currently have for the company since it was the same). Please note that our company name is already a little bit known... and therefore inside the website it will be labeled in Logos etc. We would also state "Best Computers by Joes Computers" (as if it is a sub brand or daughter company). Thanks,0 -
High authority brand expanding product line, domain question
Hi MOZers, I've been given a handy little domain puzzle to deal with and would love insight from the community. Here's the situation: We're retailers of one specific, big, nationally known product. Let's pretend it's the Snuggee (IT'S NOT). People search for it and buy it from our site, or from Amazon or other retailers that we distribute it to. We're about to expand to carry a bunch of related, but different products - so from a one-product brand to 5 or 6 different items, relating to different keyword searches. Imagine Snuggee people want to start selling a whole bunch of products that solve the same needs of warming the front of your body and making you look silly. The owners want to change the main domain from [specific product] to [name similar to specific product, but is more general]. What concerns me is how to handle the fame of the branded product in terms of domain names. Current domain, based on that product, has a ton of links and a decent age. Owners are thinking to redirect everything to fresh new unestablished domain. While I know 301s will pass most link value, it will also be a home page that will be about a bunch of products - not just that main known one. In fact, we're considering making a URL for each product as landing page, of which old famous product would be one of 5 or 6 pages. Two main options we're considering right now: Keep old domain as a doorway page featuring just old product, with same look and feel, and from which any links would point to the new domain. Try to keep this as ranking for top result for this search, which should be easy. Unify everything under new domain, with old product being featured on a separate page / subdirectory. Hope that new home page still can rank pretty well for our old product, even though it will be talking about other products now as well. What we'd stand to lose would be the SERP for old products featuring too many big box retailers that sell our stuff and take a chunk out of our margins. The goal is to help us become known for many things, while still being always the best search result for what we're already known for. Which of those two options seem best, or is there another I'm missing altogether? Thank you!
Branding | | advancedSemiotics0 -
Google Places Question
When you are optimizing Google places campaigns what do you find to be a better way to appear for more searches? No, all customers come to the business location or Yes, this business serves customers at their locations (45 mile radius) **? **
Branding | | TheGrid1