Web Designers and SEOs using backlinks from client sites

[littlesthobo]

What are your thoughts on SEOs and web designers putting their own links in the footers of client sites.

For the sake of argument, lets assume that the client is happy for the link to be there. I'm referring to the SEO merits of the link being there from an 'irrelevant' website.

My belief is that this goes against what Google is looking for and that these are irrelevant links and likely to be picked up and penalised.  That's what I believe!

However, I see lots of sites offering SEO services that have dofollow links from their client sites, using exact match anchor text and they are all ranking highly.

Is it just a matter of time before Google sniffs them out and penalises them for it?  Or should I be going through my client sites and adding myself a dofollow link in the footer? (with their permission of course).

The highest ranking sites in any UK city do this.  If you search SEO Manchester, SEO Leeds etc and find the top ranking sites and check them out on opensite explorer, they are all using a disproportionate amount of dofollow backlinks form client sites.

[ChristopherGlaeser]

What are your thoughts on SEOs and web designers putting their own links in the footers of client sites.

When considering actual number of links, this practice is perhaps even more common in online software suites (e.g. phpBB) and online services (e.g. Volusion eCommerce), neither of which use nofollow.  Regarding user experience, I'm fine with these links if they are in the footer because there are times when I really do want to know how a particular site was built.  In other words, that's what good links are for--taking the user where they want to go.

Best,
Christopher

[littlesthobo]

I agree I like to see them there, but I'm wondering how Google would view these links given the irrelevance of them on the actual site?

[Mark_Ginsberg]

I'd be very hesitant to add target anchor text in these links - I've seen sites that had built links like Web Design and SEO services by Company X - web design points to the webdev page, seo points to the seo page on the company website. These sites got rocked by Penguin - footer site wide links with keyword rick anchor text pointing to target pages leads to heavily overoptimized backlink profiles that are awesome penguin food. Don't do it! Just use a branded link or a naked anchor link (www.companyx.com) as the link back, otherwise you're just asking for trouble.

[littlesthobo]

Thanks Mark - Would you be happy with a dofollow branded link, or err on the side of caution with a nofollow link?

[Mark_Ginsberg]

I don't think there's no reason to nofollow this branded link - you built their site, they chose you and have kept that link on there - that's a pretty good signal that they are endorsing your work. If they want it removed, by all means they'll remove it, or ask you to remove it, or replace you with someone else and remove it. So I'd leave it as followed - but definitely go with branded.

You may also want to consider creating a page of clients you've worked with in the past/portfolio type page, and then link to that page instead of the homepage. If you get hit, you can always kill that page and start another internal portfolio page. With the homepage, that's much harder to do.

[ChristopherGlaeser]

Excellent point on the anchor text.  I reviewed a number of high ranking sites with DA of 95+ that use these links in the footer and they only use the site name in the anchor text.

Best,
Christopher