Why Footer Links Are Now Bad

Have you heard the word? On July 26 2021, Google posted a blog with a few new announcements on its algorithm update. So what did they post and how is it relevant to you?

Legitimate Footer Links

Remember how, in the good old days, you and your friends in the same industry would exchange footer links to share some link juice? Let’s say you worked in residential moving and you created a link to your friend’s website in commercial moving, since you don’t offer that service but want to help people that might be looking for it rather than leave them hanging. Not only this, but you wanted to help your friend by sending some traffic her way, and not to mention, link juice.

Well, google just announced… Those are now going to be viewed as spammy links. Even if you’re both within the same city. This has hit some SEO companies hard.

Trust us, we’re one of them.

The mountains PeanutButter SEO will have to climb to get back to first page ;)

Related Article: Google is making your website IRRELEVANT

Ever notice how pages that have been optimized by an SEO professional often have a signature at the bottom letting you know who the hot-shot company that brought this website to the 1st page is? Yup, now considered spam.

This, along with a migration from one host to another has sent us tumbling down the SERPs. We now have to climb several pages back to decency.

We’re not the only one though. As you can imagine, many companies were hit hard with this. Many entrepreneurs that owned multiple businesses in the same city and wanted to share link juice across their websites may have also been hit.

Is Google making your life difficult?

So why did google do this? At first, it may seem like google is trying to ruin your life. Yes it’s frustrating. But are they really out to get you? No. Google has 2 things at the top of it’s to do list. Make more money, and make the search more relevant to its searchers. That’s all it’s trying to do. So the changes in this most recent update likely serve one of those 2 purposes. Let’s explore how.

Spammers & PBNs elimination = Better Results

So, while many companies used the footer links legitimately to showcase their work and share their brand with people that may be interested in SEO services, there were also many people abusing this strategy. And as with anything, when a good thing is taken advantage of, it gets ruined for the rest. This is a good case of that. Whether it be through personal blogging networks, exchanging random and unrelated links or just spammers creating backlinks without thinking about the consequences, this strategy is out, and it has hurt many.

"Google has eliminated the footer links as being a boon in an effort to make the SERPS more organic and relevant to its users."

SEO Reduction = PPC

Money. By releasing this update, you can imagine that many legitimate businesses, SEO and other industries alike, were left scrambling after their sites took a dive in the SERPS. Google being the best source of leads in the world, they turned to another Google product, PPC. By eliminating the footer links, google forced a lot of people to switch, whether temporarily or permanently from SEO, in which they make no money as people pay independent companies, to SEM in which people pay google directly to show up at the top of the SERPs.

"So in the end, google hasn’t changed much. It’s still always about money and better search results for its users."

If you’re new to SEO and would like to understand more, please read about: Why SEO takes so long.

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