Keyword links in footer
-
Hi - I am trying to help a site to get out from under a Google manual action penalty - down as "Partial Matches - Unnatural Links to site".
I am checking through their links - the site that links most to them is a local directory style site - it has 2,682 links back into 1 page (Home) The directory site was built by the web co. that built my clients' site and they put a keyword link in the footer of the directory site - the keyword was "Buy Truffles". All my instincts say that is a bad thing! But - this is what is perplexing me - they are ranking no.1 for that keyword! Whereas they have lost rankings (i.e. not top 50) for all the other keywords they were targeting. So I don't get it! Can anyone explain why this is. I feel I should I get that link removed but don't want to take out their only ranking keyword! Webmaster shows about 55 different pages in the directory site have a link back to my client. Hope you can help.
Cheers - Steve -
Ahh I see Steve.
So there is a partial penalty to the site? If this is not the culprit, I would search out those that are. Detoxing is certainly an eye opener and you will most definitely find work to do with that.
Andy
-
Hi Andy - thanks for the quick reply and confirming what I thought about the keywords in footer.
But I can see that my question wasn't phrased well enough. Where I said "... this is what is perplexing me - they are ranking no.1 for that keyword! " It is actually my clients site that is ranking no. 1 for that keyword which is embedded in the footer of the directory site.
This is what doesn't make sense. I'd have thought that Google would have stomped on that as one of the first things they did. Instead it's the only keyword they have that is still ranking.
Just to say that I have performed a full test on all the back links using Link Detox software and now I am also going through manually and actually reviewing each link. Time consuming but also quite educational.
Thanks again.
-
I think you will find your gut feel here is correct to get this removed. Matt Cutts has actually said that widget and footer links are not what they are looking for, but have you actually performed a full test on all back links to see what sort of a state everything else coming back to the site is in?
For now, try not to focus on what this other site are ranking for - there is a reason Google have given them this placement. You need to disavow / have these dodgy links removed. They are really focusing heavily on links right now, so it is important to remain whiter-than-white in this aspect.
Andy
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
-
Doudle URLs without Canonical link and a change in keyword.: What are the effects on SEO?
I built my new website and i have two major worries. 1. My home page has two URLs. The one with a high PA though indexed by Google, is not submitted in the sitemap. I tried to place a canonical tag but the hosting service said it was impossible for me to place the canonical link. My concern is if the indexed page will be successfully optimized for SEO without it being submitted in the sitemap and what happens to the other URL for the same page which is also indexed and submitted in the sitemap? 2.I started my link building campaign for one of my pages. I acquired some good PA already for a particular keyword but later on discovered it will be very difficult for me to rank for the major keyword. I have decided to change the keyword. Will the acquired PA influence the SEO for the new keyword? I wish to know if i should dissolve the links to the page for the former keyword or should i maintain them and move forward with building links for the new keyword as well.
Technical SEO | | trevordocs0 -
Disavow links old links
We have built a lot of sites and there a few sites we no longer manage or want any association with. When I have looked at webmasters I can see 20 to 200+ odd links back to our site. The page however at source has no reference to our website. I have searched the code but there isn't anything. Is it safe to disavow these or just leave them?
Technical SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
Choosing Focus Keywords
Hello everyone! I am new to the community and I have a question about determining keywords. I have created a blog {LulusLikes.com} to practice my SEO. I have installed the Yoast SEO plugin and I have noticed the plugin always encourages you to choose a different focus keyword. So if my focus keyword is "Dog of the Week" and it's a weekly contest, wouldn't that be my focus keyword each time I had that type of post? How should I choose my focus keyword for that type of post? I hope that makes sense. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Lulus_Likes0 -
So many internal links to the same page
Hey guyz,
Technical SEO | | atakala
I'm working with a client that has a page which has many internal links to the same page .
Let me illustrate it.
So as you can see I have a page which is called in the image "page" :D.
As you can see, the **page **has many links to the solutions.htmls' anchor links which mean they are basically the same page ( solutions.html)
Is it going to be a problem for us to do that ?
And is there anyway to handle this problem?
Thank you for you patience. And sorry for my bad english 😄 4deRc1W.png0 -
Too many navigational links
Hi there, I have an issue with the amount of internal links on my webpages. Moz campaign manager gives a lot of 'too many on page links' issues. Over 7000.
Technical SEO | | MarcelMoz
I know the importance of a good internal linking structure. 1. Not too many internal links (over approximately 100) is good for flowing through some authority from authoritive pages.
2. Too many internal links can spend all of the 'crawler budget' so the crawlers won't crawl the complete website anymore (right?). This can cause problems with indexing new webpages (right?). This is the situation: The website is a webshop The header contains 6 links, the footer contains 32 links, the homepage contains 42 links, the body content of some category pages contains a variated amount of links from 30 to a maximum of 100 links. Product pages do contain a maximum of 25 links. There is no problem here. Now here's the problem: The website navigation is a dropdown menu that contains 167 links to tier 2. These links are very important for our visitors. They can immediately find the right category/product by it. Removing or shrinking this dropdown is not an option. But the dropdown navigation is causing all of the 'too many on page links' issues. Question: is there a SEO (indexing, PA) problem in this situation which i should solve? What should I solve and how should I solve this? Note: pages have good organic positions and authority. Thanks a lot. Marcel0 -
Keyword Cannibalization?
I am not quite sure I totally understand the concept of keyword cannibalization. I have seen the SEO Moz Snowboard example... I tried to apply the concept but the on-page ranking sees a category page of mine with KW cannibalization. By the way, I still get an A for the targeted KW. I have an e-commerce site, one category page targets 'wool sweaters' and a product page for example is : 'chunky-knit wool turtleneck sweater' (there are 8 products total in this category all are flagged Cannibalizers). I didn't think KWC would be an issue...ranking seems to be effected judging ranking for other category pages w/o KW cannibalization issues. So, my question I guess is KW cannibalization really a big deal? What is taken into account when judging KW cannibalization. Title Tags? URLs? Thanks in advance
Technical SEO | | IOSC1 -
We registered with Yahoo Directory. Why won't this show up as a a linking root domain in our link analysis??
Recently checked our link analysis report for 2 of our campaigns who are registered in the dir.yahoo.com (yahoo directory). For some reason, we don't see this being a domain that shows up as linking to our website - why is this?
Technical SEO | | MMP0 -
Preserving Link Value
My client has an existing domain, domain A. They recently purchased and absorbed another company with their own domain, domain B. For marketing purposes company B will be rebranded as company A. They want to redirect domain B to domain A. The problem is that company B has by far the more visible domain, with 4x the number of inbound links. If I redirect domain B to domain A, what will happen to these links? I'm thinking their value will be lost.
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0