Sitewide Links delete or add nofollow

[goodhost]

This question has been asked before, and I’ve read most of the answers. However, things are somewhat different, as we are a web hosting company and have many clients that link to us site wide in the footer, as well we have a website builder application where we control the footer links on our end user's websites. Most use just our “domain name” or “Powered by Domain” Should we remove them? It does provide visitors some value as they can tell where the website is hosting, has been developed or how to sign up for our website builder or web hosting services. Right now, they are all follow, and we are working on cleaning up our link profile so looking for some great advice on how to proceed. Our link profile is very large since we are a web hosting company that has been around for 10 plus years.

Thanks in advanced for your recommendations.

[MichaelYork]

Hi,

If they are domain specific then you aren't going to run into too many problems. I've seen companies in your situation in the past use nofollow on a portion of their clients websites though just to have some diversity. It is my understanding though that if you aren't keyword stuffing them then the risk is significantly negated.

[MarketingOfAmerica]

I have a two questions.

1. Do you have anchor keywords(Not your urls or brand name) from those sites linking back to your website?  Please note: your brand name would be considered to Google your url without .com with no spaces, if you have spaces this isn't your brand name and you can still penalize yourself for your term.  This is why people get penalized for EMD sites, they think they are ok to build to the same keyword over and over of the domain and you just can't do that, it won't end well.

2. Are these all quality websites that are established?

Pending on those answers you could have anchor text diversity issues for your website which could cause several issues.  For example, a footer site wide link could generate a lot of backlinks and cause your density of a keyword to skyrocket to 20% if you don't have many backlinks to your website.  This could easily penalize you for ranking for that specific keyword.

If any of these sites are using unethical tactics or get penalized from Google, it would be good for you since you are on them as well.  If you are linked to several low quality not so established websites this could also not look good for your website.

Footer links are risky if they aren't used correctly.  I would make sure they aren't site wide at ever.  I would also make sure that the sites are DA 30+ if you are going to place your link on them.

Have a great day.

[goodhost]

1. We have http://domain.com and Powered by http://domain.com.

2. We have a ton of backlinks to our website we are an older web hosting company.

[MarketingOfAmerica]

You should be fine then.  However I would still insure your site isn't sitting on any penalized sites others performed unethical tactics, or Google found unethical and penalized along the way.

Open OSE and I would look into the lowest DA's PA's leading to your website and try to remove them if they are to low.

Have a great night.