Thanks for commenting. I 100% agree with you, I’ve had the very same problem unsubscribing from their mailing lists. Major brands like Pizza Express shouldn’t allow this to happen, most professional e-mail marketing software has unsubscribe functionality built in, you should be doing everything in your power to make sure that person is removed from your mailing list when requested.

I think its pretty poor to see big brands like this failing to effectively manage their e-mail marketing list, since it’s such a big part of their overall online marketing strategy.

Thanks for your comment I really appreciate it. You are correct I have taken the ‘SEO’ view point here.

However, in this article I have tried my best to consider both sides of the argument for and against. I can completely accept your point of view.

As I stated in the post there are some good reason why this could be considered OK:

- The agency / web design company built the website, they should be credited for their hard work and for the long term maintenance of the website.
- A link is possibly worth more to them, than any referrals through word of mouth (as it is for you personally)
People who like the website design will see the link and might click through to inquire (as they did for your website design)

There is one thing I have to make clear, in this post I was generally referring to agencies, bigger web design companies NOT specifically freelance designers, developers or independent design studios.

The reason why is for freelancers or smaller agencies like yourself, they don’t have massive advertising / marketing budgets to throw at promotion to gain new clients when starting out (when the agencies clearly do) so I can understand that it is important to use a promotion strategy such as this to increase your word of mouth referrals.

What I cannot except is the bigger companies abusing such a tactic to increase their visibility, clients, sales, exposure etc. from their existing clients (who pay them anyway) when they already have the means and resources to acquire the same benefits of the links by a more fair method e.g doing natural link building through content creation, blogging or online PR.

I do hope that this post sparks debate, as it was very much intended to.

Thanks for writing down your opinions on this subject but I have to say from the outset that I don’t agree. I seems you have taken an SEOers POV on this subject and not one from the agencies perspective.

I do feel you have a strong point on your side of the argument but here’s some food for thought from an agencies perspective.

Word of month referrals is one of the most important factoring for an agency when bringing in and completing new projects. The client may certainly refer you and your company to others but one of the best referral methods I’ve found first hand are those people that have found out about you by finding a link on a website you’ve completed. I completed my first freelance project around 9 months ago now and thanks to the link on the bottom of that site I’ve had work and contacts approaching me since.

The majority of footer links to me are nofollowed too and the ones that aren’t the client has given permission for, like a small reward for the great work we have done for them.

So my point is that there’s a referral based advantage for the freelancer/agency for placing a link in the footer. It’s like an artist signing his work, you want to make people aware of the work you do and get kudos/SEO link juice benefit if and when the client decides you have deserved it.

A footer link doesn’t make an agency a cheat, far from it.

Great post though mate and one that should spark a good debate.

Thanks for commenting, I appreciate your feedback. I felt that the word ‘cheat’ had to be used to make my point clear. Sure, I agree with you that some web design companies do stipulate that a small link is placed on the client’s site in the contract.

However, I feel that most clients don’t quite understand just what they are agreeing to in this instance. What you will find often, is that web design companies exploit the opportunity to place a link in the footer of the site without explaining to the client why they are doing this.

To any effect, it is the web design agency that benefits mostly from the footer link than the end client. Hopefully, Google will see sense in the future to discard all footer links like this, as they don’t hold any value to the end user of the website.

As I said it’s ok to put a link if the client is happy for you to note that the site was ‘built and designed by X’ but it should be the client’s decision.

It still remains an easy way to increase a web design agencies SEO rankings cheaply, without much effort and one of main reasons that many web design agency sites carry any search engine authority at all.

This my view from what I’ve seen happen in the industry and from my personal experience, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me.

Companies may also list their clients on their agency portfolio and link through, so may include in their contracts that the site will display a small link to the agency’s website in return.

Compare it to a builder doing an extension, who may have in their contract that “work done by Joe Bloggs” must be shown outside the house during the time of the build and even for the first x weeks after.

However I do agree that doing this secretively – right at the end, or hiding the links, is not very professional.