Do branded footer links hurt me?

[SwanJob]

I run a small seo company. We work uber white hat. We are small with only 4 of us but we have a good client base with great results. My question is related to my own websites because they are the only sites in which I practice this technique.

I just watched the white board Friday about good vs bad link building. In the bad link building it mentioned never to externally link in the footer. Is this an all around statement?

For instance, every new site we make we always put links in the footer of our clients. Usually says something like "Developed by Stodzy Internet marketing Almost all the web design companies I work with do the same thing.

Is this going to help me or hurt me?

[RobertFisher]

Tim

I like your question because it is presented so honestly. Yes, many web design firms and SEO firms link to themselves from client sites. My parents would say, "If Johnny jumps off a bridge are you going to jump off the same bridge?" Of course I would say, Yes! But, the thing with footer links is they were so abused they no longer carry any weight for you. To some, that would mean, oh, put them somewhere else. To me, and this is my opinion, it is not a practice I want to engage in. I have links to some of our clients from our site(s), but I do not link back to our firm from client sites.

You are a good SEO firm and are trying to do things correctly. Keep it up and don't worry about how many links you have to your site. (I realize some will call that sacrilege) If you stay at it the links will come. Post good info re SEO, web dev, etc. and links will come. I have never ceased to be amazed by the links we get to some of the oddest things we have posted. We actually posted a pic with several screen types showing responsive design sometime a year or two ago that has gotten tons of links. Go figure as there are lot of pics like that on the web.

That is one man's opinion, I'm sure there will be others.

Best to you,

Robert

[SwanJob]

Thanks man. Do you think its a good idea to keep the footer links but make them no follow? I got a phone call a week and a half ago from someone who was looking at a clients website and clicked on the link and got to our site.

I figure that can't hurt.

[RobertFisher]

I agree. No follow if you are going to do it. I will also tell you that we get calls re specific sites we have built, and we do not use footer links. Do I think I could have missed a call because I did not, I would guess it is very likely.

Best,

[garrettkite]

Tim,

I'm glad you raised that issue. I'm in a very similar situation to you and have had the same question. I have also had calls from random companies that saw my business name in the footer of a site and ended up calling for info. I would hate to have missed out on those new clients, or at the very least the branding opportunity, by not having the footer links on my clients' sites.

In my opinion I think you're spot-on with the no-follow option. I haven't implemented that yet, but will likely put that on the to-do list.

[EGOL]

....it mentioned never to externally link in the footer. Is this an all around statement?

If you go to Amazon.com you can see that it is not an all around statement.  They have 30+ links to external domains in the footer.  They are Amazon properties and linked with branded anchor.... but if those links are passing any juice then I think that they should be whacked for it.

Almost all the web design companies I work with do the same thing.  Is this going to help me or hurt me?

If that is required of all clients then there will be some clients who will not hire you because they don't want links to external sites in their footer.   Some don't want them because they worry that google might not like them and some just don't want advertising in their footer.

[MTalhaImtiaz]

Hello Tim & Robert,

What about links to social media accounts from the footer?

[MarieHaynes]

I started to type out a big long answer and realized that this would probably be better served as an entire article...so, I've just spent the last few hours writing an article on my thoughts on this question.  For the last couple of years I've been watching John Mueller's Webmaster Central Hangouts and making notes.  I've summarized in the article, everything that John has said related to the subject.

I hope it's not against the rules for me to link to my own stuff from the Moz Q&A.  If it is, then Moz Mods, feel free to remove either the link or the post:  What Google says about footer links and penalties.

The take home points are:

-Don't link with keyword anchor text

-You have to make sure that the clients are aware of the link and want to have it there (which is a tough thing to prove!)

-If you're not sure whether your links are natural then it may be best to nofollow

[JaneCopland]

Quite a few answers here that can be endorsed

Basically, footer links have been abused shamelessly in the past, when they were a good way of including juice-passing links to whomever you liked without many people seeing the links. Big sites still do it and still get away with it, but we've long known that all is not fair in SEO and Amazon can sometimes get away with things that small companies cannot.

Nofollowing footer links is the safe way out, especially if you want to keep the links for branding purposes.

[Recharged-Solutions]

Thank you for this good discussion. We have a town website we developed and recently I removed our footer link. Instead, at the bottom of the homepage I put a quick line of text that says Designed By "Company Name". Now only the homepage links to us so it is ok to utilize this highest PR ranking page of their site to boost one of our keywords.

We have no official tests but we have made tremendous leaps for that keyword recently.

In summary, rather than not being able to use keywords in anchor text and gaining a ton of links all at one time (if its a large site) doesn't it make more sense to make a link in the body at the bottom of the highest PR page of the site or even homepage that says Designed By "Company Name"?

Granted placing this on only a handful of pages will reduce your overall brand exposure.