Self-Generated Backlinks Question

[roger205]

I'm kinda new to the whole backlinks thing. My company does website design and we have, historically, included a statement in the Footer of the websites stating "Website by Our Company" linking back to our own website.

Should we be NoFollowing these links? Are they hurting us in any way? Are there any best practices for this?

[VeroBrain]

Hi Roger,

Assuming that link goes to a page in your website that shows your services and/or portfolio, it is perfect! Another option if it goes to the "about us" page...

Said that, you should have the permission of the owner.

Secondly, if it is a new domain, ie DA 1 and PA 1 you might consider a nofollow link. But, it is a guessing, I mean if in a matter of months that client climbs the sky in terms of DA and PA, you will not be happy by having that nofollow link.

On regard the foot links, I understand that is a rule mostly for websites having an structure of affiliates. In your case, it is part of your ecosystem, meaning almost all do the same in the industry of Website Developers Companies. Good luck!

Mª Verónica

Note: I had to edit, due to I misunderstood the question - thanks to Paul I got it.

[ThompsonPaul]

Yup, the requirement for these kinds of links is to use nofollow on them, Roger. They're worth leaving in place (assuming you have the clients' permission) for their potential referral value, but even without the nofollow, they'd have little SEO value anyway as Google heavily devalues sitewide footer links like that. Best to be safe from having them considered manipulative by making them nofollow.

If you want to add another layer of usefulness, add UTM tracking to the links so you can easily distinguish visitors from those links in your Analytics. That way you can assess how those visitors are performing once they reach your site. I'd actually recommend going one step further and creating a custom landing page that is specifically optimised for visitors you know have already seen a website you designed.

Make sense?

Paul