Incoming links from client sites Options

[Mike521]

Hey all, just want to get some input on this.

My company does website design as well as seo. On sites that we design, we normally put a "website designed by " link at the bottom.

Could this cause a problem with sites that we also host on our server? Our server all sites off the same IP address.

Obviously our client sites are much different than ours and there is no link farming or spam attempt going on, the link is there for interested parties to contact us easily.

However is there a possibility that engines see this and disregard the fact that all the client's sites are for real, and just think that we are spamming?

[DianeV]

I don't have any evidence that there is a *penalty*, per se, for this practice, which is a common one in the web design field.

My guess is that, if anything, Google may *discount* the number of incoming links. I base this on Google's statement (which unfortunately I can't locate right now) that they penalize for very little. Note that penalization is different than simply not giving weight to or credit for a specific element.

[compar]

We put a link on our company web site to every site we design, host or do SEO work for. Most of these sites are housed on the same server as our company website. I have noticed that our link to these sites is often one of the first backlinks Google reports.
Even though these sites are all on the same server we give each site it's own unique IP address. We also tend to put a credit link back to ourselves on all sites we design. Google recognizes the links in both direction and I have never seen any evidence of any penalty for this.

This is standard commercial practice to put credit lines on everything. I don't think Google is going to penalize anyone for standard practices like this.

[Mike521]

yea thats what I was thinking too, just figured I'd get some input to be sure. thanks


edit: main reason I was concerned was cause it occurred to me that some sort of autodetection in google might up and say "hey look a bunch of sites on the same IP address owned by same company all linking back to one site -- spam!"

[DianeV]

Mike, it just might. I am going on what has been said by a Google rep (again, I can't find the quote, though).

At the point where such links are no longer just ignored, but actually penalized, it would give us something to think about.

[Steve_Sardell]

The discussion of home page back links has been getting quite a bit of attention lately. Design firms, SEOs, etc. frequently want a link on the home page and even some on every page. I understand why they would want it, but do not see the necessity. For branding, a simple logo should suffice and then a link from the resource page. Of course the link from the design firm will jump start a web page PR. And, this is one of the power selling points. Is this a scheme? That is not for me to say. Will search engines look upon it as a scheme? Who knows?

As always just my opinion

[DianeV]

Yes, it does all that.

But let's look at it another way: assume for the sake of this discussion that there were no such thing as link popularity or PageRank; that is, no added boost in search engines for links pointing to a website.

In that case, the link(s) from the client's site serve the exact purpose for which many web design companies place it there in the first place: allowing visitors to the website to discover who designed it. Similarly, links to client sites in portfolios allow web design companies to display their work as it is (rather than as a smaller image of the site), and drives a bit of traffic to the client's site as well.

Of course, it's understood that search engines may not view it in this light. Such is life. At the point where such links were actually *penalized* rather than, say, discounted, I would have to consider the value of this ongoing direct promotion versus traffic from that search engine.

[Steve_Sardell]

the link(s) from the client's site serve the exact purpose for which many web design companies place it there in the first place: allowing visitors to the website to discover who designed it. Similarly, links to client sites in portfolios allow web design companies to display their work as it is (rather than as a smaller image of the site), and drives a bit of traffic to the client's site as well.

Hi DianeV.
No disagreement as to the reason why a design firm wants the link, nor of its intended use. But, in the clients best interest if the branding is a hyperlink taking the site visitor away from the site are we not doing a disservice to the client? In the print media we always place our logo on the back bottom, but in web design we place it prominately on the front. The branding I agree with, it is the link I am having trouble with.

[DianeV]

I get your point, although I doubt that the tiny little link we put on the bottom of some clients' pages is prominent at all.

Client's best interests: generally, I would guess that anyone who would leave a client's site (and none of ours are web designers) to follow a web designer link is not all that interested.

[James]

I see these links as being no different to a published by credit, or edited by credit on a book or magazine.

And of course, using a target="_blank" link will leave the original site open anyway.

[Mike521]

I agree, I see them as a good thing for all parties really.

If I was a store owner and I wanted a site, one of the best ways to find a designer I liked would be just stumbling upon a site and going "hey I like this design a lot, who made this?" nice to have an easy link for them showing who the designers are, and same goes for portfolios on websites

[Steve_Sardell]

Hi James,

I agree to an extent, but ackn'ments are not usually on the front cover, and if all only would open in a sep window. Please do not get me wrong, I am trying to convince myself it is appropriate.

[DianeV]

It's really up to you, and your client, and what you both deem appropriate. Some of our clients would like people to think they handle their websites in-house.

By the way, welcome to the forums!

[glengara]

*The branding I agree with, it is the link I am having trouble with.*

Agree 100% with this, and always recommend clients drop spurious links, particularly from the home page.

[alpine]

To play the devil's advocate here and referencing a discussion elsewhere on these forums about future-proofing:

What is a search engine's intent when it looks at links? In most studies, they are looking at a link being a "vote" for a site.

When you as a web designer place your link on a client site, is this a "vote" by the client? If so, why don't they place links with equal prominence to the workshop that services their car or the take-out restaurant that delivers baguettes at lunchtime?

This is without even thinking about possible impacts of theming or topic-sensitive PageRank.

Yes, it might work now, but then so do hidden text, layers and blog spamming, which are also artificial attempts to manipulate rankings. Who do you think will have the more stable long-term rankings? The web designers who only have links from their client sites or those that also have links from others who appreciate their free and valuable articles on the use of CSS (for example). I see many designer sites who only rely on client links to keep their sites visible - are they standing in the path of that hurricane?

[Black_Knight]

Indeed, Alpine, those are important points, so lets play with just a couple of ideas.

Firstly, this isn't saying we need to discard the idea of having links on client sites. Rather, we need to make the relevance more implicit.

The simplest way of attaining this would be to change the way these links are worded.

A typical credit for design currently might look like:
[quote]Site designed by SomeDesigner.com

More relevance would lie in the incredibly simple change of emphasis in:
[quote]This site designed by SomeDesigner.com

Of course, the page theme or topic is still different, but at least we have given a little more relevance to the link. Enough so? Well, possibly not, but it is certainly one step in the right direction.

Let's play with the ideas some more.

Okay, now suppose we instead placed a more meaningful link in the 'About' pages of the client site. So, where the topic of the page is about the site and the people behind it, your link is in perfect context. Your company is indeed part of the team behind the site. Rather than just one tiny link out of context, you could have a paragraph explaining your company's role in the design and maintenance of the site.

The same is easily true of the 'Contact Us' page. If your company is in any way responsible for ongoing changes, updates or general maintenance of the site, then of course people wishing to contact the company about the site, rather than the products, should have your details there. Once again, this is right in context with the page topic, and makes practical sense.

Let's keep going with another idea.

Okay, so what if the client doesn't have you maintaining the site, and only wants you to have a tiny link in small text in the page footers? Well, how about instead of that link being direct to your site, you create one additional page on that client's site for that footer link to go to.

Lemme try to sketch this out for you a bit.

In the page Footer is the link:
[quote]Site designed by SomeDesigner.com
But the trick is that that link wouldn't go direct to the designer's site. Instead, it would go to a page on the client's site that explains the designers role in creating the site, and that page would link to the designers site. That page was of course entirely topical about the design of the site.

See - an on-topic link from an on-topic page that is easy to make happen.

[glengara]

Brilliant suggestions BK, instantly added, and may well claim ownership

[Keywords]

Assuming the client is happy with the work, and agrees to add that page somewhere, it's definitely a "vote" for the designer's work. A lot of designers have a significant impact on the client's business, because "site design" is a lot more than "graphic design."

A lot of design clients would be quite happy to talk about the process and effort that went into making their site look & work better, because it shows how much *they* care about *their* customers/visitors.

I think it's a shame that more designers don't take the time to share their knowledge. Simply adding case studies to a designer's site is immensely helpful to their prospects. Sharing those case studies as published articles would be immensely helpful to the designer as well.

[alpine]

Ammon, I agree absolutely that this kind of "link" - especially the specially designed page - is one of the ways to go.

Unfortunately, in many cases, webmasters have yet to wake up to the power and the opportunities of something along these lines. To take an example:

One site I run is one of the top-ranked and most extensive sites for a particular area (it's informational not commercial). There is a marketing organisation/co-operation which links this area with similar areas in other parts of Europe.

About six months ago, I looked through the SERPs for these other areas and found the best and most switched-on sites for those other destinations. I wrote to them all and suggested that I could create a page devoted to each individual area (with the raison d'etre of the marketing co-operation) which would also review their sites and link to them. They could do the same on their sites and we would have authorities linking one to another with relevant and on-topic but varied content.

I got one reply. And that one informed me that they didn't give away free advertising on their site...

[Grumpus]

This is a little off topic, but...

I got one reply. And that one informed me that they didn't give away free advertising on their site...

When I was in college, I did some door-to-door sales to pay some bills. The product I had was marketed directly to businesses. The trick of this job wasn't so much getting past the goalie (you know, the person out front blocking sales people from getting in). The trick was to identify the right person to talk to (identify the "goal") before even approaching the goalie. Getting past the receptionist does you no good if you don't get in front of the right person. And, if you identify the right person properly, its even easier to get past the goalie - because it is that person's job to deal with the issues you are about to present them.

In your example above (a good example, mind you), your main problem, in my opinion anyway, is that you didn't get that e-mail into the proper person's hands. Somehow it worked its way into the advertising or some other equally non-relevant manager's hands. It needed to get to someone who at least understands how the web works and preferably someone who knows how SEO works. Once it gets into their hands and they are sold on the idea, then they end up carrying (or handing off) your message upwards along the ladder toward the person who ultimately approves the request. The advantage here is that on each rung of the ladder, the person who has the message is sold on the idea and he/she will not only overcome the objections that people have, but will also know the most efficient and direct route up that ladder - something that you could never possibly know without being inside. (And often "the top" is not even where you might expect it to be - the person you chose in the first place might even be the top in regards to that specific decision - and most likely never even reach the CEO or even head of Advertising, for that matter).

It's ideal if you can have them bring you along that trip to the top, but even that's not always necessary if you've truly found the right person and have adequately sold them on the idea.

Okay - sorry for the sidetrack - back to your linking topics.

G.