SEO penalty for developer URLs in content unrelated client site footer

Hello,

First post on here, and I really look forward to getting to know you all and also sharing my expertise (which is not in SEO btw, I am a developer ) where I can.

So I have a question to pose you SEO experts regarding the age old tradition putting a 'Website By X' backlink to your developer/designer domain in the footer of client websites. I know the google alg is now penalising backlinks from unrelated content more heavily, and I am concerned it will affect my business domain. For instance my domain sourcey.com has around 1800+ backlinks but only has a PR of 2. Many of those backlinks come from my client sites which range from textiles to travel (some have PR of 4 or 5).

Is my domain being penalised for this, or does anyone have any experience/advice on this matter?

Thanks

 

I dont think that will be an issue , because if I'm correct , your link is placed as "Website Designed & Developed by ...."
But check this article http://blog.kissmetrics.com/penalized-by-google/
it says
"Site-wide links. We all need to link pages together, but Google is constantly scanning those links for unnatural patterns. A classic example is a web developer credit in the footer of a page. Don’t just nofollow: remove them entirely."

 

I used sponsored templates with a link in the footer and I got a popular wordpress theme and got well over 100k links from the websites using it... In the end I've got penalised by google for taking the credit for the theme. There're some similar stories on the internet.
Yes, I find it unfair that you can't take credit for your work but I guess that's how it works now so you should nofollow those links or use company name without a link.

 

Google simple devaluates back links in this case, it's not a penalty / filter unless you're noticing a significant drop in ranks for a particular keyword.

 

yes, I think this is not penalty.
just patience and still doing your backlink effort

 

Interesting stuff, thanks for taking the time to answer!
I'm thinking that I might restrict my backlinks to the home page only on my client sites, so as not to taint the quality of the backlinks.

 

Aslo just found this: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-off-topic-links-disavow-18191.html

 

Hi, I am new to digital point forum, I would like to increase by website traffic Organically, that is one of my keyword listed in Google.co.in first page, but its not coming to first page first position, please give me some suggestion to reach first position. my keyword is Retail POS Software my website is gofrugal

sorry I couldn't able to mention my website name because I may be spammed from this forum

 

Please start a new thread, rather than hijacking this one.

 

That's fine. Unless your going crazy with the linking that small link back will be fine.

 

Thanks for your prompt response, As per your suggestion I'll do the same.

 

Hi Kam, thanks for your reply.

 

Your welcome! Hope it helps