SEO Link on Clients Site

[MiroAsh]

Hey SEOMozzers,

Quick question. In light of the possible 'over-optimisation' penalties pending from Google should we be looking to remove the SEO links to our site from our Clients websites? I appreciate that including a link to our site from an anchor text that includes 'SEO' in it may be like waving a flag to Search Engines saying we are carrying out SEO on our Clients sites.

Obviously we would sooner risk a drop in our SEO keyword rankings than risk a penalty of any kind for our Clients.

What is the recommended practice here?

[ontarget-media]

Hi,

a) I don't think your client should really get affected with that one link out to your website.  May be, one thing you could consider is to request and obtain from the client a link from  the body of a page (say, for example, Our Partners) instead of having it from the footer.

b) Secondly, you could vary the anchor text that you get from different client websites, instead of using the same  one from all.

I'd say, treat this as an "earned" link from a happy client. Google might not value it as much as it does other links (based on placement on the page; the surrounding text etc.); but I don't think one would get penalised by this.

I'm sure there will be views to the contrary!

[MalcolmGibb]

Hi, this was recently asked at http://www.seomoz.org/q/following-penguin-what-is-the-best-practice-for-a-web-design-agency-placing-a-footer-link-in-client-sites. I added in the conversation and there may be answers you are looking for there.