8 replies to this topic

[Jill]

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*Introductory Comments:
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*Search Engine Marketing:
----> Transparent Gif Links
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*Advisor Wrap-Up:
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________________________________________________________

http://www.highranki...om/issue071.htm

[Tom Philo]

[Moved this in the Advisor newsletter discussion area. - Jill]


In your newsletter you had a person state:

"Most all of my clients have in the past allowed me to place a small
text link at the base of their sites which links to my site. In the
past few months, I have come to the conclusion that this form of "tag"
makes my clients' sites look less professional, and I have started to
remove the visible links and replace them with a transparent gif that
carries the alt tag with the same message and link."

Instead of putting a link at the bottom of their home page (or footers of all) I would suggest that you put it on their "Contact Us" page, "About Us" page or some similar type page that is referred to by people to find who to contact instead of the main page.

These types of pages are used to contact webmaster, site owner, customer service etc and putting a "Site designed by" link on these types of pages is very appropriate. Who designed the site? Why not look on the contact page and find out.

Working for the Federal government and maintaining our web sites we do not always have the same criteria as commercial sites, but we still have to give credit to photos, site designers, and put out contact info when problems occur etc and we usually put these types of information on the contact us page when appropriate.

These pages are still crawled, links are still seen and design credits, to me, are logical to be placed there.

Tom Philo

www.bpa.gov

Edited by Jill, 22 September 2003 - 07:52 PM.

[SearchRank]

Hi taphilo. Welcome to the forum!

That is a good idea if the owner of the web site does not want design credit links on every footer.

However IMHO I think it is best that it be included in footer along with copyright info on every page. Here is a perfect example (bottom of page) of a design credit link that is not intrusive and professional looking. It gives you visibility on every page and let's face it, it's advertising for the design company.

Edited by SearchRank, 22 May 2006 - 12:13 PM.

[fred]

Hi

I haven't read the newsletter but here are my 2 cents

I'm with 'taphilo' on this one.

It does seam less professional to have a link to the site designer on every page ( even though it gives you more incoming links ).

I would also advise not to use deceptive techniques like the transparent gif. To me this is spamming the SE again because the link is not displayed.

Yes it's not the worst spam it's only a link to your site , it doesn't affect page content for the SE, but a line has to be drawn.

Put that info in the partners or contact page.

Edit :
OK 'searchrank'

Your example is a good one, works for me not to intrusive if the customer allows it

I had not taken into account that every page created is still copyrighted to the designer, unless you give or sell your design copyrights to your customer

[compar]

We have had this entire discussion already on this forum. I just went looking for it and was unable to find it. Maybe someone else can provide us with the link.

But let me say that I disagree that a designer credit on each page seem less professional. Have a look at the credit on this site. Do you think this diminishes the value or quality of the site?

[SearchRank]

Here is where that forum is at Bob. True we have already discussed this in that forum so that is all I will say rather to rehash it out here.

[Tom Philo]

Read the other thread on this subject and it gets back to the old computer answer: it depends.

If the site design suffers for the client from having a credit link at the footer then my suggestion is a good alternative. The sample site linked to in the thread looked fine and did not detract at all from the page contents. There but unobstrusive.

Another design criteria to think about when designing a web site.

[Ron Carnell]

My philosophy on it is pretty simple.

You want to give me a free web design and a free place to host it, I'll be happy to provide you with free advertising.

[Jill]

I find it's appropriate to put a designed by link anywhere you want to put it.

Just don't make it invisible!

Jill