Site Wide Programming Can Hurt Your SEO

Writing by Nick Stamoulis

Most web sites are built on a template like design basis where the general design of a page is repeated across the whole site, the only change being in the content. This can often affect the outcome of your search engine optimization efforts.

The concept of site wide designs is fine and allows for consistency and familiarity for visitors. However there are certain aspects that may not sit well with search engines. One of the reasons that links within content are so valuable is the fact that they don’t appear site wide.

Links in footers, on the other hand, do appear on every page. Some of these links could be viewed by search engines as paid links, the end result being a reduction in page ranking. The reason of course is because footers have often been the home of paid laid links.

Bloggers that use free templates are often unwittingly displaying the most inappropriate links in the footers; links that are masquerading as designers name or website. If you are using a free template, I suggest you click on those links and see where they are actually going.

Other site wide links may help your search engine optimization efforts in the long run. These include links back to the home page on all other pages.

As a general rule, footers can be an ideal location to place links to all your important internal pages. They can also be used to display important non linking information such as shop front locations and telephone contact numbers.

If you are using a template that displays the same information site wide, check on the links in areas like the footer. If there is the slightest doubt that they may negatively impact your rankings in the major search engines then, remove them or “nofollow” them.