Site-wide Footer Link on Client/Friend Website - Dangerous?

[Anthony_NorthSEO]

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

[EGOL]

I am worried that Google will see this is unnatural,

Does your friend know about Penguin, Panda, etc. and understand what they are about?

[Anthony_NorthSEO]

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?

[EquatorTeam2]

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