Backlinks are considered a top priority when it comes to rankings, as search engines use them to identify a site’s authority. But, throughout the years, a series of updates have established that when it comes to links, quality matters more than quantity. Link building strategies are a must in your SEO campaign. Ideally, you want to get natural or organic backlinks, those that your site obtains for creating valuable and relevant content.

Sitewide links are becoming a very debatable topic among the SEO community. Some claim that implementing them is right for your overall campaign, and others think not so much. So, what exactly is a sitewide link?

It’s a link that appears on most (or all) of a website’s pages. But, when using sitewide links, you need to be careful. Depending on how you implement them, they can end up flagged as spam. Here are two common places where sitewide links may appear:

  –  At the footer. If a site uses a template for its footer, any link added there will likely be a sitewide link. However, this tactic is risky. They are commonly abused by website owners, and search engines can view them as paid links.

  –  At a site’s sidebar. A list of these links appears on the side of every page of a website. Many argue that these can be even more detrimental than footer links. They occupy a larger space within a site, and thus, they are easy for search engines to spot.

If you work in an industry where you offer services, including a small mention of your business at the footer of your client’s pages, won’t cause any problem. Also, if you are known for posting multiple publications on separate websites, then linking those sites together would be entirely natural for search engines. However, you must keep relevancy within topics. The content on both or more publications needs to match the subject, so crawlers understand their connection.