Help! Someone's inserted my link in the footer of another site!
-
There's a site in my industry where (I'm guessing on flawed SEO advice) all of their pages contain footer links to rival sites – with each page containing a different set of links.
One page has a link to my site, which I've just found out from GWT as the link now produces a 404.
Should I
a) ignore it?
b) ask them to replace it with a live link from my site (their site's highly relevant to mine)? or
c) ask them to remove it altogether as no-one wants footer links? -
Ah I think this answers my question:
....John Mueller of Google did confirm at Google Webmaster Forum that, if a page is made 404 or 410, links to such a page are not counted by Google.
-
Thanks for the input.
I agree they look spammy. I'm also going by this thread here:
http://moz.com/community/q/footer-link-2Qu: the single footer link to my site produces a 404 Not Found (it was for a real estate listing that we deleted months ago).
Do I still need to take action or can I simply ignore? -
If you are referring to the anchor text links at the bottom I'd get it removed. They look extremely spammy and is probably doing you no good whatsoever.
Ask them to remove the link but if they refuse to or you don't get a response, use the disavow file.
-
Now why didn't I think of that?
However, my question remains: You would take the link despite its being in a footer? -
Or you could just use your htaccess file to 301 redirect their broken link to whatever page on your site you want it to go to.
-
Footer link, though? Isn't that a no-no?
-
I would recommend what you
ve mentioned under point b) ... I can
t see why you should not take a little advantage from such a link?! As long as this site that gives you this link is not a "bad" one...
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How do the powerful links of an old domain help my new domain?
I recently purchased a domain with over twenty years age, a few .gov links and A LOT of .edu links. Of course, the domain is relevant to my site's content. I'm hosting the domain on my shared server and have setup 301 redirects for each page that had external links pointing to it via the htaccess file within the domain's root directory. These 301 redirects, of course, point to my new domain, which is on a dedicated server. Specifically, they point to a directory on my new domain. I've also verified the purchased domain and my new domain on Google Search Console/Webmaster Tools. Finally, I've completed a google site change request for the old site to point to my new site. My questions: Should I also list my old domain on the dedicated server over the shared server or does it matter? Will the backlinks of the old site show up in my new site's links via Google's search console, Open Site Explorer, etc.? Will the backlinks of the old site improve the authority of my domain? Also, keep in mind that I have the 301 redirects pointing to a directory on my new site, not the root page of the new domain. Will the backlinks of the old site help my new domain's authority? In the eyes of Moz I've read, NO. I understand it's just a MOZ metric but from what I understand it also correlates with Google's actual 'authority' metric/method of giving value to a particular domain over another based on the backlinks. How exactly do the backlinks of the old domain benefit my new domain and is there a way to measure this/see the relationship? Thank you for any help you're willing to give!
Link Building | | ninel_P0 -
If someone were to link to our site on now on an old article (dating back 1-2 years) is that still beneficial if all other variables are good?
I'm trying to build up our external links and am finding lots of opportunities, some of which are on older articles dating back to 2014, 2013 etc. These pieces are relevant to our site and have high DA, I'm wondering if the post date of these articles matter? Thanks!
Link Building | | Postable0 -
301 redirect of PR 6 domain to PR 1 site, Will it improve my site's seo?
I have a pagerank 1 website but i recently purchased one old pagerank 6 domain, if I 301 redirect this pr6 domain to my currrent pr1 site, will it will increase my site's pr and improve seo ?
Link Building | | IndiaFPS0 -
Document download sites linking to my site. Should I disavow?
I downloaded my links through the Google Webmaster site and I have a number of new links that appear to be coming from document download sites. They have basically taken my PDFs and have them to where they can be downloaded. They are also linking back to my site and creating what I feel are sketchy links. I don't actually want traffic coming to these PDFs. They are basically sample articles for my writing company and it's just a portfolio. Here's one of the links: http://www.give-me-doc.com/Trailer-Brake-Types.pdf So, what or can I do about them? Should I disavow them? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks,
Link Building | | wordsyouwant
Valerie0 -
Does Open Site Explorer show juice passing links
I'm a little confused between all the link types. Internal / External - easy Linking Root Domain - easy Followed / No followed - easy But then there's talk about "juice passing links" and I can't quite get how this is defined, and why it's something you can get from the API, but not from Open Site Explorer... or can you get that info from OSE?
Link Building | | eatyourveggies0 -
Why are good authority links to my site not showing?
Hi, about a month ago, I obtained a couple of good authority external links into my client's site. One of these is from a local government site, ie a .gov.uk website, which has a Domain Authority of 99 according to OSE and a page authority of 67. However, these links are not showing up in SEOmoz or OSE and the domain authority of my client's site has not changed. Why do the links not show? Surely a period of 5 weeks is long enough for these links to be indexed?
Link Building | | mfrgolfgti0 -
How do sites have so many 'total links'?
I've been analyzing some of our competitors: essayedge.com and papercheck.com Both sites have a large number of 'total links'... about 93,000 each. The former has about 1,200 linking root domains while the latter only has 195. Even for 1,200 linking root domains, 93k total links seems like a ton to me. Our site has 101 linking root domains and only 299 'total links'. I'm quite new to this whole SEO game and admittedly still learning a TON. Am I missing something here? How do sites generate so many links? This seems nuts to me. Thanks for any help!
Link Building | | TBiz0 -
Run of Site Links
I recently got a link from a relevant site but it ended up being a run of site link. The site has over 3,000 pages that now link to my site. Will my site get penalized for this?
Link Building | | mj7750