I have a client that issues frequent press releases. At the bottom of every press release is a line like this: "Come visit our website at: www.xyc.com." While I encourage the press releases for content reasons, I am wondering if there are any repercussions for linking back to your own URL like this. Any thoughts?
Well, it's a stupid waste of a link to set it up like that. Instead of putting the domain, the active live link should be for a targeted keyword. Apart from that, why on Earth are you asking? Links are good. Is this someone paying you for SEO?
I have 100 webpages in my website, and every one of them has the home page button and hyperlink on its menu. Wouldn't a link to the home page almost be an industry standard? Now the question might arise about a second link to the main URL. Although, I haven't seen a problem when I add two identical URLs on some pages, like to my image albums.
amanamission is right. Don't waste a good link by just using your url. Put in some keywords (anchor text), such as: "Come visit our website, where we are having a great sale on blue-green widgets."
Every site in the world uses navigation. You need a link back to your home page. There are times when you want to simply link to yourdomain.com. If every single link in your backlinks points to X anchor text, it is a red flag. It's part of looking natural. There are sometimes branding reasons to go with domain.com instead of "anchor text", but generally speaking I would want an anchor text link when possible as well. Brandon
Have the anchor link be a keyword linking back to a that same keyword focused article or themed page.
Actually, the end of a press release (called the "call to action") should always include a clickable URL to your site (not thrown in anchor text). But in the example given, it's a really bad call to action. Proper form is something along the lines of "For more information about [company name] or [your news], please visit www.YourSite.com, or contact [media contact name] at [phone number]." On another note, Joseph, your first mistake is encouraging press releases for "content" reasons. That's not what they're for, and misusing them can very easily damage the reputation of a company or site (it's like the boy who cried wolf... if you publish them for content purposes instead of only when there's something truly newsworthy to say, no one will pay attention to them after the first few, and your real news down the road gets ignored). As for linking to your homepage in a sitewide sense, you'd be an idiot not to. Remember... readers first. It's your job and responsibility to make your site easy to browse, and that includes making it easy to get back to your home page from any internal page on your site. Even Google advocates creating sites for visitors and not search engines... doing that is nothing but shortsighted, as their rules change all the time.
Fully agreed. This is a real good analysis and to the point too...It is a waste of link if you set it up like that. No SEO person would advise you to go that way.