Dangerous Use of Offsite Links

Posted on June 28, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate News |

Consistent off site links and branding SUCK!

Its been almost a year now since I suggested that consistent offsite links on sites to be a bad thing. This morning while talking to an associate at the University, it was explained to me that many large firms are now removing links entirely from places like the footer and other redundant locations and simply providing a site map or internal content before the offsite link. Studies show that people do not click on footer links unless alternative options were not available. What does this do for ego tags and other types of ridiculous branding?

I’ve always had a gut feeling about this; and I’ve always had a bit of an attitude on the subject of branding links as well. I’ve rarely put my “Designed By ME” link in templates and sites I build limiting it to sites I’ve fixed and did not charge a person for. Often its insisted upon, otherwise I avoid the practice. Why?

The first reason is that there is no logical basis for doing so. Regardless of all the big fat liar ego excuses web designers give you; leaving links to designers sites does you more harm than good. It doesn’t help with the generation of more business for web designers and it does little more than provide an SE link to their site. I personally believe this would be better served by providing details about the site in the about us section of any project.

The second reason is that if studies are correct in saying people don’t click on the links at the footer than what makes a designer actually believe someone is going to come by and click their links? In the years I’ve been doing design work I’ve had fewer than 100 inquiries for design work as a result of footer links. Shitty sites not worthy of follow up? Nope, people just don’t click on those links and people who are competitors rarely have the balls to call up the very designer of their competitor and ask them to do work for them. So, when you compare that to the thousands of templates and sites that have either used my work and or been built by me, you can see that 100 is so trivial its almost non existent.

Wise business suggests that you scrap the footer links completely and opt instead for links to internal pages before exiting your site. If possible and you don’t violate the agreement with your designers then I’d suggest using the NO FOLLOW tag in the link to prevent any punitive consequences from search engines. If you can remove the link all together then by all means do it.

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1 Comment so far
  1. Nickie June 28, 2007 8:10 pm

    Hi Jared,

    I love your candid style!

    So are you talking about just on static type websites?

    Thanks!


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