Site-wide Links: a Low Hanging Fruit for SEO?
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What is site-wide link?
Site wide link (or run of site link) is a link that is seen through all the pages of the site. It can be external (from some other site) and internal (your menu). External link can be found somewhere in a footer, a blogroll or a sidebar of the linking site. Internal site wide link is, for example, a link to your home page placed on every page of your site.
Potentially, it is a low hanging fruit for optimizers, but let us see if there are any obstacles to gathering them.
The present-day tendency in Google system of ranking is the move towards the quality of the site instead of the quality and quantity of the link profile. Although Google tries to find alternative ranking signals, and to place more emphasis on them, I dare say the bad profile can do more harm than no profile at all. Thus, one should better be careful about site-wide links and there are reasons why.
Tips on using run of site links
- Put in more labor into having more contextual links
The diversity of links is what we should always look for. Run of site links, however, have the same anchors through the site. Plus, they are all in the same context and usually they have no much of the content surrounding them because they are typically in sidebar, in blogroll. It`s why this is perfectly ok to have 20 links from one site (if they have different anchors and are interwoven with the content). And it is definitely another story when you have 20 links that are site-wide. So, the value of site wide links is lower, some people say 1 site wide link equals 1 single link, others say it is even worse than that and they can bring on penalty on you. But it is nothing but guessing. I really believe the guessing is a little bit over exaggerated. SEO approach becomes easy if seen from the point of view of Google`s policy: ranking should be organic and site is made for people. If someone is linking to your site in sidebar, it won`t do any harm, as well as you are not to expect increase in trust rank. - The older your site-wide links, the better
There are some observations about time relevance of site-wide links. They gain weight after they grow older. And it is understandable. Otherwise it would be easy to cheat at SEO game. Plus, it is harder to purchase a site-wide link for a long period of time, so there are more chances for it to be natural. Some people say it takes a year or longer to feel tangible results from site-wide links. - Try not to buy site-wide links
If you are into buying links, then don`t do it in bulk. Buy them one at a time. However, one should bear in mind that there won`t be either bulk or powerful impact on your page rank, if any. Does it worth spending your money then while there are more reliable and search-engine-friendly ways to enrich your link profile? 
- Ratio of site-wide links to overall number of links
As to the profile, before engaging in building site-wide links, make sure your link profile is not thin. It is logical that site with almost no backlinks can hardly be reputable enough to earn a site-wide link. The percentage of run of site links should be next to nothing in your link profile. - The quality of the linking site matters
And, as usual, the trust rank of the site with site-wide link to your site is of major importance. One should see to the quality of the web source and to its topic as well. It shouldn`t be some off-the-wall site. - Footer links
One should also mind the footer! Google puts less value into links in footers considering them non-editorial. - Author links
If you need site-wide links for traffic, no-follow links on sub-pages, dofollow the one on the home page. - Internal links
Cross-linking web pages on your site, do not put more site-wide links to your home page than necessary or it will look spammy. It is better to link to inner pages from your sidebar menu.
2011-12-11 15:10 by Cancanit, Back To Top
SEO monster said...
Corporate6 said...
Many people do not understand that you do not want to just keep sending the same product offer over and over again. I would recommend you advertise one product at the very most 5 times and then move onto something else. Also make sure you change your email to a follow up format for best results.
Harison said...
Good tips, I am really thankful to you for these tips. They are a guide for me. Thanks.
Cancanit said...
SEO monster, Harison, thank you! Stay with us to enjoy what's coming next!
John Smith said...
Nice tips given and useful too for the readers.
Suv said...
Some nice tips here, contextual links are highly important.
Thanks for the article, didn't know about footer links that they are not ok for Google.
2011-12-11 19:54:02