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Pro Retail
28 October 2008 14:51pm
Hi, wonder if any search experts can help with this one.
Our site has a credit at the foot of each page linking to our web design agency. We agreed this at the start of the project and they gave us a big discount on the job as they wanted us on their client list so I'm not worried about the ethics or commercial asepcts of this.
Our problem is that another SEO consultant has now come along and said this is affecting our rankings, something about watering down our internal links.
It's not something that I can find any reference to in Google's guidelines, is it something I should be worried about? I dont know who to beleive!
E-Business Consultant at Dan Barker
28 October 2008 15:21pm
hi, James, I wouldn't be too worried.
Your SEO's idea will probably be based around this (using the homepage as an example):
This is a very hazy area & there are always questions on whether sitewide links transfer as much trust, etc. I think as long as your design agency is reputable, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
If you are concerned, get in touch with them & ask if they mind you switching their link to a 'nofollow' link. A nofollow says to Google "I'm linking to this site, but I don't want to allot any trust to it".
Hope that's useful.
daniel
Technical Project Manager (MBA, MBCS, CITP, CEng) at Naxtech.com
28 October 2008 15:26pm
Hi James,
in theory having an irrelevant link (ie. link to a supplier/designer) at the very bottom of a page does not necessarily provide any benefit to your website seo-wise. However, from my experience I would not say that having that link is something to worry about nor would it make a huge difference to your SEO performance.
Even if it does affect your site seo-wise there are still ways to keep the link there without it having an seo-related effect to your site.
I hope this helps.
regards,
Denis
www.naxtech.com
Managing Director at n3w media
29 October 2008 07:30am
Hello James,
I would be more worried about your SEO company to be honest! Having a footer link back to your design agency is pretty common practice and really is not likely to cause you any problems with regard to how your site ranks in search engines.
What would concern me more is that a company that purports to be able to help you with search marketing has suggested to you that it is an issue...
Kind Regards
Ed
http://www.n3wmedia.com
E-Business Consultant at Dan Barker
29 October 2008 09:17am
hi, Eddie,
you're right - having a sitewide link back to a design company is common practice. I don't think it's worth starting a witchhunt against the SEO though - I'd be far more surprised if they hadn't mentioned this as something to bear in mind.
daniel
Pro Retail
29 October 2008 11:27am
Thanks all,
Actually our design guys came back to us with the nofollow thing as a suggestion yesterday which looks like it's endorsed here.
Interesting comments though and much appreciated