Links in footer

[byebyebaby]

Does anybody know if it is bad when another website links to you in their footer?

I read that putting links in the footer is no longer good to do?
So I was wondering if someone else links to me in their footer is also bad?

[Peter Willis]

Two very different questions to answer.

Firstly, yes putting links in your websites footer could have a negative impact on the rankings for that site. Google doesn't want you to sell/exchange links which will pass PageRank (and thus have an effect on rankings). Footer links are almost always either a result of link sales or exchanges. If your footer links are to your other network sites and could be of benefit to users... then I would almost certainly recommend keeping them.

I put could in bold in the above paragraph because realistically you'd only get penalised for linking out sold/exchanged links if a Google Engineer was having a bad day or you "abuse" it. I've got at least 10 sites (in other niches) which link out to a select number of related resources (paid for) and they have all maintained rankings/PR for the last 2 years.

To answer your 2nd question re:incoming links. Theoretically no incoming links should do you any harm, but won't necessarily do you any good either. After all, if it was possible to impact negatively on a site by pointing lots of footer links (as an example) at it... we could all be having a detrimental effect on our competitors rankings.

Again this comes with a caveat, as what one Google Engineer can clearly identify as being a malcious attempt to screw you over by a competitor... may be seen by another Engineer as your poor attempt at SEO.

[LiveCasinoPartners]

I think that if you feel that you can get traffic from the footer links then do it. Don't worry about google. If you feel that you will get a negative impact (which I doubt) then you can add the rel="nofollow" attribute to the link.

I still feel that the worse thing that could happen is that google will not take the links into account when calculuating the SERPs.

The upside is that Google may at least count some of the links.

As mentioned earlier, go for the value in the links themselves, and not the secondary value in the link juice.

That's how I would manage it.

[baldidiot]

Here's what Matt Cutts has to say on the issue:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWe.../0/D0fgh5RIHdE

[Eduardo]

Whether or not incoming links can harm your site is a topic discussed much in SEO forums and even the SEO gurus cannot agree upon it. What SEOs tend to say is that if your overall link profile clearly shows that you only have poorly quality links (footer links, link farms, none related links) then it might have a negative effect on your rankings - but if this is the case you will most like not have rankings anyhow.
If you have a good link profile with a number relevant quality links then just because a competitor starts to send you bad links it will most likely not harm you. It will properly cost your competitor much more time and money on getting your site badly ranked than it would it improving their own rankings.

[shuvo]

I dont think so.Bt if you can place your link in footer section in other site.If that site has 150 pages you will get backlink from all those pages.

[jctroy440]

I have heard that if you cross link your sites that will have a negative effect on your rankings, but if you link to another relevant gambling site that's OK. What's the difference? Footer, headers, ....just do it. A back link is a back link. there are only 3.5 million other sites out there you are competing against and if you can find the "Golden BB" go for it. i found a few myself by accident.

I am semi-retired and have all day to study SEO all day, I swore I would never post in here again but the crap that I see in here after studying SEO non stop for 5 months is outrageous.

Google takes over 200 variables into its algorithm to determine page and site ranking ( no I don't know them all ) You must work on getting individual pages to be ranked in the top ten. Don't worry about your overall site ranking, that takes time. Learn how to get specific pages ranked. I've had a new web site up for three weeks and already have 4 pages on the first page of "specific"searches. Searches that have global numbers of 2000+ per month. That is what counts. Bringing new customer to your site every day.

[best.hands]

You are correct there Jim. Targeting specific queries could be an entry point for your site to get its words all over the internet. And once it gets the popularity from specific searches, people who have come across the site and enjoyed the content would likely link to you through their blog or site. And I think that is we called a viral effect of quality link building.

[Simmo!]

Here's what Matt Cutts has to say on the issue:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWe.../0/D0fgh5RIHdE

Pretty much answers the question

[EugeneK]

it is better to split outgoing links into different sections.