I have been releasing free themes for a script and have been putting footer sponsor links in the footer to my sites. One site has 1000,s of links to it now due to the amount of people using a theme. The site linked to has now dropped from PR4 to PR2 in the last PR update. It also seems to be going backwards in the search results with google for the main keyword. Question,s: Do footer links work for increasing PR? Can you be penalized by Google for using footer links? What are your thought,s on using footer links? Should I remove them from my themes? Thanks in advance
Do footer links work for increasing PR? - nope Can you be penalized by Google for using footer links? - may be
Rand Fishkin argues that they have little or no value and in some respects I have to agree with him. Footer links may be devalued by search engines automatically. Check out the evidence – Yahoo! says they may devalue footer links, Bill Slawski uncovers patents suggesting the same and anecdotal evidence suggests Google might do this (or go further) as well.
The value of footer links is much less then the value of contextual links. This isn't to say they are useless, they just are much worse then getting a quality link in the middle of an article. I think it is good to have footer links on 1 or 2 bigger websites but I pay for a footer link.
I don't think that footer links have any impressive value, but in the same time it is better then nothing. But, if you buy link then avoid footer.
I would say footer links can hold some potential value in terms of the traffic. Depends on how popular the site is, aside from traffic and popularity, footer links are usually removed from themes from what I see. Hopefully you have a loyal following Good luck.
It really depends on the site, footers on some high PR sites work very well, but in general, best to go for links within an article.
well i would add - the footer is the least important part of a website - after all it is the last thing on the page... I always ask for link being placed as close to the top of the page as possible - this way you will leak more TBPR etc as you are seen as one of the most imortant outbound links on the page as you are near the top of the page/ content. slap your link in the footer and your one of the least important things about the page - i ahve noticed that excessive anchor text footer linking will get you penalised, but hay hoe... slow and steady wins the link building race.
Footer links may be devalued by search engines automatically Check out the evidence - Yahoo! says they may devalue footer links, Bill Slawski uncovers patents suggesting the same and anecdotal evidence suggests Google might do this (or go further) as well. Needless to say, if you want to make sure your links are passing maximum value, it's wise to avoid the footer (particularly the footer class itself).