Will getting backlinks to landing page from low quality sites negatively affect SEO?

[JustinButlion]

I've recently started an initiative at my company to get our customers to publish a blog post about our company and to include a link to a landing page which sits on a subdomain attached to our main domain. The reason for directing visitors to the post to a landing page is to help with conversion.

I've recently been thinking that couldn't the backlinks to this landing page from our customers' blogs (generally small sites) have a negative impact on the overall SEO of my companies domain?

Thanks in advance.

[webmethod]

Hi Justin,

Personally I think you'll be fine as you've described the initiative working. Google doesn't expect every link to a website to be from a high authority, otherwise it would look unnatural. In reality, there will be a mix of high and low authority pages/domains that link to every website. However, if the blog posts are being spun out on blog networks, or if your customers sites have been penalised by Google then it probably isn't going to help you much.

What isn't clear is whether you're effectively buying these links, and whether they will pass PageRank or not. I encourage you to read Google's guidelines on this: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en.

George

[DennisSeymour]

Definitely not something Id be worried about, as long as you set the proper rules and restrictions on what they can post/how long it is/how they link

Main thing I'd worry about is anchor text so just set proper choices for them.

[Kurt_Steinbrueck]

I would differentiate between low quality sites and small sites without much authority (yet).  When I hear low quality, I think of a spammy site that doesn't have quality, original content.  There are plenty of small blogs out there which aren't extremely popular, but do put out quality, original content.  Getting links from small sites that produce decent content is perfectly fine.  Getting links from a bunch of spammy sites, could eventually hurt you.

As to your strategy, you'll want to be careful.  If you are offering incentives for people to post about your site, those links are technically considered paid links and are unnatural.  According to the Google guidelines, those links should be nofollow.  If they aren't and you are trying to gain link authority through these posts, you're playing a game of whether your way of buying links is something Google will be able to figure out (or your competitors will report).  If Google does figure it out, those links may be devalued and your site could be penalized.  Just be aware of the risks.

If you just want people posting about your site and sending traffic, then ask them to nofollow the links when they publish the posts and you'll be within Google guidelines.

Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com

[JustinButlion]

Thanks for the help George. We aren't buying these links, just speaking to our customers and trying to convince them to write about their use of our service. I think we will be fine.

[JustinButlion]

Thanks Dennis. I have a close relationship with these customers so I make sure the anchor text is fine. Thanks for the help.

[JustinButlion]

Thanks for the advice Kurt and I'll make sure to be careful. It doesn't look like we will invest too much more in this strategy as it is quite resource intensive.