Agency footer link, do we keep it ?

[AymanH]

Hello !

I was wondering if it's still a good idea to let a do-follow link on the bottom of agency released websites.

Because they obvisouly come from different websites with no link with a web marketing agency.

• Do we have to keep them in the footer in no-follow ?
• If we do so, how to get some link juice from the different websites ?

It sounds a bit stupid but one of my partners went from PR7 to PR5 recently. I guess Penguin 2.0 did not like all its links from its customers' website.

Tks a lot !

[Chris.Menke]

While those footer links back to the agency that created the website used to be commonplace and sought after, it's shaky ground today--even just one or two no-followed links from a client's  site could get you in trouble--in the future.

Today, a followed link or two from the footer of a client's home page and another one from some an interior page (each link having different, non-exact match anchor text) may still provide your site some advantage--and that's the problem.  Using those links to your advantage may help your authority in the present but you shouldn't be surprised if that authority is stripped at some point in the future.  You know what it looks like when authority is stripped?   A penalty.

If you are still getting a followed footer link or two from each of your clients, that shouldn't be your only means of building authority--it should be a supplemental means.  You really need to work just as hard as any other site in any other industry to build editorial links back to your site in order that you not suffer an authority adjustment down the road.

The best practice is to nofollow those links in order to prevent them from giving you problems in the future.

[JBidigital]

There was an interesting discussion related to this sometime back on Google Groups. https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/webmasters/pX0sI1KOnTM/60MmAnGN5fsJ

The conclusion I would say is that you can link from the client websites, but make sure you do not stuff keywords in the anchor text. As long as someone is linking with the brand name, it shouldn't have any issues.

[warcom]

Short answers: Don't do it.

Chris did a great job at explaining why as well.

Having said that, if the agency is a highly respected an ethical agency, then you could consider it, but nine out of 10 times, they won't be, so I'd advise removing the links.

[AymanH]

Mum ... I never really looked this as a problem until the last Google updates.

So if I got it properly:

1. Keeping one link on the home may not hurt my website (now)
2. Keeping the footer link on all website would be the last thing to do
3. Keeping the link in nofollow can bring me some new customers (now) and penalize my site soon

I think I'm going for the nofollow option now.

What do you think ?