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can sitewide footer links hurt the target money site?

by PBMax
16 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I know most of you WF gang don't cotton to sitewide footer links, but...

Even if you don't think they help, do you think they hurt the site the links target?

2 years ago or so I had a PBN with a mix of open footer links and hidden footer links to my clients and I added articles (some with links) twice a week, so pretty soon the backlink count was up there.

Even back then there was a little PBN brush-up and news of sites getting messed with, and I panicked over a Google dance and took them down. Not two days later one of my clients was like, "Hey I had a bunch of links the other day, but now I only have a handful." And their rankings dropped.

I kept thinking of that. Anyhoo...

"2011 wants it's SEO back" and other jokes aside, would sitewide footer links inside a paragraph using the client's URL or compan name as anchor text, and perhaps 1 or 2 keyword anchor texts, this hurt the money site?
#footer #hurt #links #money #site #sitewide #target
  • Profile picture of the author Venkat001
    Sitewide links are considered to be the SPAM links by Google. They will only make your blog go down in the Google rankings.
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    • Profile picture of the author PBMax
      Originally Posted by Venkat001 View Post

      Sitewide links are considered to be the SPAM links by Google. They will only make your blog go down in the Google rankings.
      I know that's been said, but are there any documented cases of this actually happening? Could be that Google bluffs a lot, no?
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      • Profile picture of the author seoboyz01
        Originally Posted by PBMax View Post

        I know that's been said, but are there any documented cases of this actually happening? Could be that Google bluffs a lot, no?
        It seems like you really want to try this idea of using site wide footer links again. And, you should only use it on a site that you don't mind risking. Don't risk your money site (or a client site). Put up a tester site or use one of your less important sites for this purpose and see how it goes.
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        • Profile picture of the author PBMax
          Originally Posted by seoboyz01 View Post

          It seems like you really want to try this idea of using site wide footer links again. And, you should only use it on a site that you don't mind risking. Don't risk your money site (or a client site). Put up a tester site or use one of your less important sites for this purpose and see how it goes.
          Well, yea, I want to do this again. And I don't really care about the 10 sites I'm gonna try the sitewide footer links on, my concern is could it hurt the target site?

          I suspect it can't since that would allow anyone to do this to hurt their competitors.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
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      Originally Posted by Venkat001 View Post

      Sitewide links are considered to be the SPAM links by Google. They will only make your blog go down in the Google rankings.
      Maybe in a perfect Google world, fortunately that's not the case.

      All you have to do is look at just about any web/dev portfolio to see a bazillion footer links. Still indexed, still ranking...
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    • Profile picture of the author Craig B
      Originally Posted by Venkat001 View Post

      Sitewide links are considered to be the SPAM links by Google. They will only make your blog go down in the Google rankings.
      I see sites with sitewide links ranking all the time. In many cases, most of their links are sitewide.
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    • Profile picture of the author patco
      Originally Posted by Venkat001 View Post

      Sitewide links are considered to be the SPAM links by Google. They will only make your blog go down in the Google rankings.
      Yes, but I can't agree fully with you. if it was SPAM, then we could build backlinks to our competitors... And we don't do it! If the links are within the content (even in the sitewide), the links are not considered as SPAM! A quick example is that a lot of blogs have their recent articles in the sitewide with a 50-100 words each... And if there is a website in any of them, do you think this would be a SPAM one?
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  • Profile picture of the author Craig B
    Originally Posted by PBMax View Post

    would sitewide footer links inside a paragraph using the client's URL or compan name as anchor text, and perhaps 1 or 2 keyword anchor texts, this hurt the money site?
    Not sure if the paragraph is really necessary. I would watch out for using the same keyword(s) over and over (i.e. over optimization).

    As mentioned previously, I see sites ranking all the time with sitewide footer links. With that being said, I would still not want all or most of my links being sitewide footer links to be on the safe side. Another thing to watch out for is leaving a footprint like having multiple links in the footer using the same sites and keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hemanthmalli
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  • Profile picture of the author Chaudhary Daniyal
    When you're building links to your sites, always stay away from footer links and sidebar links. I can't stress how harmful they can be.

    When you have a link from footer or the sidebar of a site with your chosen keyword, you're not only getting a single link, but a link from every page of that site. Meaning, if your site has 50+ indexed pages, you're getting 50+ branded anchor text, do follow links to your site from a single domain.

    However, If you're a big brand with an enormous link diversity, you can use this to your advantage and rank for your chosen keywords like how Desk.com is doing it with Soundcloud.com or Wix.com is doing with it's customers and many more.

    Please note that they can get away with this because they have millions of backlinks from various root domains to begin with. You're niche sites do not have that luxury and you would be painting a red circle on your site for the next algorithm update.

    If you're sites are small i.e <10 indexed pages, you can try and get a footer links, but since these links won't be surrounded by content, they might not be as effective as contextual links.

    Hope it helps.
    Daniyal
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by Chaudhary Daniyal View Post

      When you're building links to your sites, always stay away from footer links and sidebar links. I can't stress how harmful they can be.
      Then you contradict yourself...
      However, If you're a big brand with an enormous link diversity, you can use this to your advantage and rank for your chosen

      Hope it helps.
      Daniyal
      Help what? That makes no sense.

      It hurts....but it can help.

      Like Yukon said...

      Making a blanket statement like that is just crazy. Each site and page actually
      stands on its own merit. Period. Google looks at many signals. NOT just
      because there is a sitewide footer or sidebar link.

      People take one lousy piece (as always) of what google publishes. Then
      run with a half-@$$ story line. Then must backtrack because they
      contradict themselves.

      Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author PBMax
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        Then must backtrack because they
        contradict themselves.

        Paul
        Could be the quote for 99% of SEOs, Internet marketers, door-to-door salesmen, snake oil salesmen (see "SEOs")...
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      • Profile picture of the author Chaudhary Daniyal
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        Then you contradict yourself...


        Help what? That makes no sense.

        It hurts....but it can help.
        The point of the whole statement was to contradict myself. An approach to Seo is different for every site on the basis of it's link profile & history.

        If you have a link in the sidebar and/or footer, it would count as a link from every indexed page of that site since Google's crawlers would be crawling the links each time they crawl a different page.. Makes sense?

        One of the first rules of link building is to have a wide link diversity. When your site is getting 50+ links from the same root domain with the same branded anchor text and it makes up for a certain percentage of the entire link profile, would that seem 'natural' ?

        Moving onto the big brands like Desk.com, at the time of this writing, they have 21 Million Backlinks from 8.7K domains.. this is because they're securing footer links from clients websites e.g Soundcloud.com. If you dig into their link profile at Ahrefs, their footerlinks are from a sub-domain rather than the main domain.. this is because having a footer link from a domain like soundcloud would results in hundreds (thousands?) of backlinks to their sites.

        Still some brands like Wix are securing sitewide footer links from it's clients websites ad getting away with it due to their link diversity.


        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        Making a blanket statement like that is just crazy. Each site and page actually
        stands on its own merit. Period. Google looks at many signals. NOT just
        because there is a sitewide footer or sidebar link.
        Paul
        Please read the opening post.. the question is about sitewide footer links and not about what Google takes into account.
        As for your comment, if you are abusing Google's guidelines, it doesn't matter how strong all your signals are because sites has been penalized for a single guest post in the past


        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        People take one lousy piece (as always) of what google publishes. Then
        run with a half-@$$ story line. Then must backtrack because they
        contradict themselves.
        What I've written is not what I picked up from what Google has published. Certainly not a half-backed story since I've backed up most of my arguments aswell.

        Moreover, I'm don't see myself as backtracking.. there isn't just a 'right' answer to this question and I've stated the obvious taking small niche sites and large authority sites into considerations.

        If you know SEO then like I said, SEO is different for every site
        If you disagree, then you certainly don't know SEO.

        Regards,
        Daniyal
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        • Profile picture of the author PBMax
          Well all I know is that the only 100% way to know anything is to dive in and test the waters yourself. These are 9 sites that I like, but not married to, so we'll see what happens. Maybe I'm in a time warp and it'll be 2011 all over again.

          As far as anchor diversity...if someone, say, Soundcloud gets 100000 links with Soundcloud.com as the anchor text it won't hurt them in the slightest. Even if they get 5k of those from the same site. Who's to say that isn't natural for that site?

          As you said...

          Originally Posted by Chaudhary Daniyal View Post

          SEO is different for every site
          If you disagree, then you certainly don't know SEO.
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          • Profile picture of the author Chaudhary Daniyal
            Originally Posted by PBMax View Post

            As far as anchor diversity...if someone, say, Soundcloud gets 100000 links with Soundcloud.com as the anchor text it won't hurt them in the slightest. Even if they get 5k of those from the same site. Who's to say that isn't natural for that site?
            When I was referring to Desk.com getting backlinks from Soundcloud.com, their anchor text is "Customer Service Software" , a highly searched for term they're ranking for.

            Same goes for Wix.com, their anchor text mostly contains variations of the term "Website Builder". Something they're ranking on page one aswell.

            Good thing you brought this up. I didn't touch the idea of getting backlink with your brand as the anchor text. Google actually loves brand.

            The focal point of my previous replies was the idea to get footer links with your keyword as the anchor text, not the brand.

            Sorry about this omission.
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        • Profile picture of the author JamesDean07
          Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

          Then you contradict yourself...


          Help what? That makes no sense.

          It hurts....but it can help.
          Originally Posted by Chaudhary Daniyal View Post

          Moreover, I'm don't see myself as backtracking.. there isn't just a 'right' answer to this question and I've stated the obvious taking small niche sites and large authority sites into considerations.

          If you know SEO then like I said, SEO is different for every site
          Daniyal does make some valid points. There just isn't a right answer for this since larger sites are different compared to smaller sites and thus, seo strategies differ for each - Hence the contradiction.
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  • Profile picture of the author deezn
    Someone forgot to tell www.nolo.com

    Their affiliated site, www.all-about-car-accidents.com has a header wide link back to Nolo.

    Did I mention the site-wide footer that is an exact copy of the one on the main site? Compare the two.

    Both sites rank high for related searches. Sometimes both appearing in the top 10.

    www.alllaw.com at the bottom also has a link to Nolo.

    I just did a search for "car accident law" and alllaw, nolo and all-about-car-accidents are on the first page (Damn!)
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