Is Google considering sitewide links as a ranking factor?

Inbound links, which are normally thought to be beneficial for SEO, can cause issues if too many come from the same domain.

Are sitewide links to other domains, on the other hand, a negative ranking factor?

That is what some SEO experts believe.

Is it necessary to be concerned if you receive sitewide links?

We’ll answer those questions as we look into the theories surrounding these potentially harmful links and their impact on SEO.

The Claim: Sitewide Links Are A Ranking Factor

A static outbound link that appears on every page of a website is referred to as a site-wide link.

They are typically found in the header, footer, or navigation menu.

Depending on the number of pages on a website, a single sitewide link can generate hundreds or thousands of outbound links to another site.

Google is said to interpret a disproportionate number of inbound links from the same domain as an indication of unnatural link building.

Furthermore, the lack of context in which sitewide links appear has led to claims that they are of little to no value.

For these reasons, SEO experts contend that sitewide links send negative ranking signals to the domains to which they point.

The theory behind sitewide links as a negative ranking signal emerged around the time of the Google Penguin algorithm’s seventh update, known as Penguin 4.0.

Penguin became a permanent component of Google’s search algorithm, running in real-time as a result of this update.

Link spam was demoted and/or penalized on a per-update basis prior to Penguin 4.0.

This meant that sites could continue to use spammy/risky link building tactics until the next manual update was applied.

Following these assertions, you may be concerned about discovering sitewide links pointing to your domain from other websites.

However, another claim suggests that sitewide links may be beneficial.

Simply put, the theory is that more links pass more link equity.

You could also argue that a sitewide link from a reputable website sends a stronger signal than one or two links on their own; it’s as if the reputable website is extending its strongest recommendation to the other domain.

Is there any truth to this, though?

The Case Against Sitewide Links as a Negative Ranking Factor

Google confirms that organic sitewide links are not a negative ranking signal.

According to Google’s John Mueller, sitewide links are not automatically interpreted as an unnatural linking pattern or an attempt to spam.

He says there’s no reason to believe they count against a site:

“In general, if these are normal links – organic links – that are happening that are pointing at your content, then I would just let them be. That’s the way the internet works. People link to your content.
If your students have blogs and they think, ‘Oh, this is actually a teacher that knows what he’s talking about,’ then that’s a good link. That’s not something you need to disavow just because maybe it’s a sitewide link or in the blogroll.”

When placing a sitewide link, Google recommends using the nofollow attribute to completely avoid unnatural linking signals.

Mueller states:

“…if you want to put your footer link there, make sure it has a nofollow linkn there, so that this is something that people could click on if they’re interested, but it’s seen as something that is not an editorial link by the webmaster.
It’s not something that you’d have to worry about later on and say, ‘Oh, my god. I put all these links on this website. Now Google will think I’m building an unnatural link pyramid or something crazy.’”

Our Opinion on Sitewide Links as a Ranking Factor

Sitewide links are clearly a ranking factor because, at the end of the day, a link is a link.

We already know that Google uses links as a ranking signal.

Sitewide links have no effect on search rankings in and of themselves.

Except in one case, there is no reason to disavow or request the removal of sitewide links.

If you’re working on a website that has a sitewide link pointing to it and its search rankings are suffering, it’s possible that it’s not the link itself that’s causing the issue.

It’s possible that it’s the anchor text.

Overly optimized anchor text is far more likely to harm SEO than a sitewide link.

For example, if the anchor text is “best SEO services in Toronto,” the links may be flagged as spam.

The recommended best practice when linking to another company is to use the company’s name as the anchor text.

Then it appears to be a genuine recommendation rather than an attempt to manipulate search rankings.

Google recognizes that sitewide links can occur organically in some cases.

Sitewide links do not always indicate an attempt to manipulate search results.

When it comes to sitewide links, Google recommends using the nofollow attribute so that they are not perceived as editorial links.