SEO Tramp Stamp: Not Quality Link Building

[snakeair]

So all your SEO guru's and designers who add your link into your clients footer, what do you do now?

Check out this blog post before commenting.

There comes a time in every link builder’s career when a technique comes to mind that just seems too good to be true. It may seem so damn simple you can hardly keep it contained.

If it seems a little suspect though, it probably is, and it won’t end well. Just yesterday, Search Engine Land posted about Google “releasing a new search algorithm it hopes will better catch people who spam its search results or purposely do things to rank better.” So let’s hope your brilliant idea isn’t the SEO tramp stamp!

What is the SEO tramp stamp?

Links back to your site in your client’s footer. It’s shameless self-promotion, and speaks volumes about the types of links you’ll shoot for in client campaigns. The SEO tramp stamp is link spam of the sketchy variety, and here’s why we say no to it.

Your Link Spam Just Threw You Under the Bus

Because Google relies heavily on its....

Continued at: http://outspokenmedia.com/seo/seo-tramp-stamp/

Any thoughts on this?

[Manish Pandey]

I'm seriously looking forward to that day when these kind of links will be discounted. When Google says it wishes to give a level playing field to all, it should definitely do.

I've seen many SEO companies who would drop an anchor text link (some even use SEO) in their clients' footer which to me has always been a bad as it doesn't add value, neither for the clients' website nor for the company.

[Steve_gts]

I wouldn't do this for an SEO client, but it's reasonable for a web designer to do it, they have picked up work (and backlinks!) this way since the year dot.

[mikesideas]

I never known these type of links was bad, I always remove the footer links from wordpress themes, I know its not nice to the person who designed it, I normally remove them due to the actual name in the anchor text. If it was something like "theme designed by mark smith" i would be ok with that. But thats never the case, they try and squeese as many keywords in as possible like "wordpress themes designed by wordpress theme boy"

I read that article snakeair thanks

[Data]

Originally Posted by mikesideas

I never known these type of links was bad, I always remove the footer links from wordpress themes, I know its not nice to the person who designed it, I normally remove them due to the actual name in the anchor text. If it was something like "theme designed by mark smith" i would be ok with that. But thats never the case, they try and squeese as many keywords in as possible like "wordpress themes designed by wordpress theme boy"

I read that article snakeair thanks

That's right, i too remove the footer and the links of the developers from the WordPress themes, usually i insert link of my own website

[MarkHeron]

That's really unfair for designers. How are they supposed to do their SEO while serving clients? What's next, the death of forum signatures?

[snakeair]

Originally Posted by MarkHeron

That's really unfair for designers. How are they supposed to do their SEO while serving clients? What's next, the death of forum signatures?

You can add your link in the theme but don't make it clickable. Or add a small logo with the URL to your design site in it. The point i'm trying to make is don't make the footer designer link clickable. You won't get a backlink but your URL will be showing in the footer for when people look to see who designed the theme.

The visitor can always type the address into the address bar or contact the blog owner to find out who designed the theme.

About the forum signature links, i do believe we have a thread or 2 going on about this topic if you wish to search for it to post your .

I remember a long time ago in the web directory industry that some high quality web directories that was well known would put out free themes with there directory link in the footer. Hundreds and thousands of downloads of the themes and tons of linkback for that web directory. This was just one of the factors i think why Google nailed the web directory industry a long time ago besides other stuff. (Matt Cutts fault... lol)

[jjmcd82]

I still see sponsored theme footer links working well for at least one competitor in one of my niches. The domain has exact 4 indexed URLs but Opensiteexplorer counts about 250,000 links from 2,200 domains. Those 4 indexed URLs have top five rankings for some serious money keywords.

Maybe this is something Google should look at, but as of now it still seems to be working just fine.

[MarkHeron]

Have you tried reporting that competitor to Google? I've been hearing from colleagues that Google's been uncharacteristically responsive lately when it comes to unfairly ranking sites.

[jjmcd82]

Originally Posted by MarkHeron

Have you tried reporting that competitor to Google? I've been hearing from colleagues that Google's been uncharacteristically responsive lately when it comes to unfairly ranking sites.

Whoa, definitely not my style and the last thing I want to see is SEO turning in to who can rat out who.

Besides, these footer links are a type of editorial link. If someone uses the theme, then they are getting value out of whichever individual or company produced it. Same goes for the SEO clients linking back to their service providers - or any time a website links back to a resource that helps them develop their site.

In fact the whole article sounds like sour grapes to me, as the author notes the firm in question is "tearing it up on the local results." It works because they're providing a valuable service to the sites who use it.

[n_touch]

This is something that is debatable. I will not lie and say that it is something that I have done until recently and have been working on my sites and my clients to change them. The one thing that I did not agree with in the article is the fact that if you are going to do that, then you will have no problems spamming. That is a complete reach. They are simply an advertisement and something that not only clients have gotten used to, but also those that are looking for new companies to do business with.

To say that they add no value is something that is debatable as well. Google, is not the only one that can tell you what value something has. There are many different ways to judge somethings value. You should not set your site or your client's site up for just Google, they can change anything on a whim and what is fine today can destroy a site tomorrow.

[searchbliss]

I never liked nor used these tactics. Unethical.

[Dan]

If the link is out in the open and not hidden is it bad?

I think people are taking Google's webspam idea and creating their own rules for it.

Google said they were against "hidden text". So unless the SEO/Webdesigner is hiding these links, I don't believe they are doing anything wrong. If the owner of the site didnt want them there it would be pretty easy to remove those links.

In the real world, it is a natural process to "mark your territory". When a builder is working on a job, he has his signs on the property explaining who he is and showing off his work.

He might be working on that job for months or years (a designer probably has a much shorter turnaround). Perhaps their link should be short-term, but should be allowed whilst their design or work on the website is still relatively new... but how long is that exactly?

[5593907]

I don't do web design for a living, but, if I did, I'd do my best to advertise my services. As long as the site owner is OK with the link, I have no problem with it. My issue comes with sponsored WP themes that have 12 links in the footer for 12 different keywords. I do like most people, and remove those links anyway, but it's a crappy way to pick up links IMHO.