Credit Links on Client Websites

[blackrino]

I know there have been several people who have asked this but a lot of them were back in 2012 before many of the google changes. My question is the same though.

With all the changes with Google's algorithm. Is it okay to put your link on the bottom of your clients website. Like Web Design by, etc. Part of the reason is to drive traffic but also if someone is actually interested who designed the website, they will click it. But now reading about how bad links can hurt you tremendously, it makes me second guess if this is ok. My gut feeling says, no.

[Andy-Halliday]

If you watch the whiteboard Friday from last week:

http://moz.com/blog/the-rules-of-link-building-whiteboard-friday

rule number 4 is don't link to external links in the footer. Hence linking to your website is external link building - but that said sometimes it is useful to find out who built the website.

My advice would be to put the link in - but as "nofollow" link - therefore you can still hopefully generate any sales from people who liked your site build skills, but avoid getting your own site penalised in Google.

Plus if the site you designed did any bad SEO tricks and get themselves penalised you don't suffer - I guess once you have built the site you have very little control over there SEO tricks and they might go for quick win black hat SEO tricks and you wouldn't want to get down ranked for something that is out of your control - nofollow would resolve all the potential issues, but wouldn't affect sales

[blackrino]

What if the client has awesome SEO themselves and a high domain authority etc.

[Andy-Halliday]

then you could always be cheeky and if you still have writes to edit the website remove the "nofollow", but as Moz said in there Whiteboard Friday, these are seen as spammy links in the footer - not great SEO tactics.

I guess its a debate about getting footer links and ranking in google in the short term to long term benefits of creating more natural links.

Also they said Sitewide links as not great SEO and a link in the footer is usually site wide - so its 2/5 of the bad SEO steps. My gut feeling would be not to do them in the long term you will probably be peanlised, but in the short term you need to make a living.

If this is part of a larger SEO plan maybe include a few links in certain website footers, but with the long term plan of doing none and work on writing interesting, exciting content people naturally link to, but make sure its not the only way you are getting links to your site as you risk losing all your natural rankings.

[blackrino]

Yeah makes sense. I guess the answer is to take them off all together! Or put them on the homepage with nofollow and only on the homepage.

[JaneCopland]

Given how strict Google is about footer links (with fairly good reason; they have been abused badly so often that footer links with good intentions get swept up in the mix), I would nofollow those links if you wish to keep them because they've brought you qualified traffic.

If the client site is otherwise quite strong, consider looking for another location to link from in a way that seems editorially-chosen and "natural". It's unfortunate that footer links have become so "poisonous", but they truly are best avoided or nofollowed.

[blackrino]

Thanks Jane! Out of curiosity, what do you consider a strong domain/page authority in order to get a link from it?

[JaneCopland]

I would look more for a site that has a squeaky-clean profile of its own (both in terms of its inbound and outbound links), has an appropriate page to link to you from and (for extra credit) is perhaps marginally related to your business (also in tech, for instance), rather than go on its numbers and try to shoe-horn a link in there, if that makes sense.