# Sitewide link

A sitewide link is one that appears on every page of a site, usually in the footer, the sidebar or the navigation. Google treats the many copies as roughly one link from that site, not as hundreds. The interesting cases are the paid ones, and your own footer.

Updated 2026-09-15 · Source: https://porteur.ai/glossary/sitewide-link

## What counts as sitewide

- A theme or template credit in the footer: "built with", "powered by", "site by".
- A partner or customer badge shown on every page.
- A link in the main navigation or the footer of your own site, pointing at your own pages.
- A blogroll or sponsor list in a sidebar.

## How Google treats them

A link repeated on ten thousand pages is not ten thousand links. Google consolidates it to roughly one link from that site, which is why buying a footer link on a large site buys far less than the page count suggests.

> Paid or exchanged sitewide links are a link scheme under Google’s spam policies. If money or goods changed hands, the link needs rel sponsored, and then it is not a ranking play at all.

## Your own footer

On your own site the same logic applies to internal links: a footer that links a hundred pages passes little to each, and it does not replace a contextual link from a page about the subject.

- Keep the footer to the sections a visitor actually looks for: the product, the pricing, the library, the legal pages, contact.
- Put the pages you want to rank in the body of the pages that discuss them, not only in the footer.
- A navigation of six to ten items is a decision about what matters; twenty is a decision not to decide.
- Breadcrumbs give a second path up the hierarchy and cost nothing.

## When a sitewide link is a problem

- You paid for it, or traded for it, and it passes ranking. That is a link scheme, whatever the site.
- It carries an exact-match commercial anchor on every page, which is the pattern the Penguin update targeted.
- It comes from a network of sites that all link to each other, which is a private blog network by another name.
- It is your own footer stuffed with pages nobody asks for, which dilutes the links that matter and adds noise to every page.

## Questions

### Are sitewide backlinks bad?

Not in themselves. An earned footer credit from one site is fine. A bought one is a link scheme under the spam policies, and a network of them is worse.

### How much is a sitewide link worth?

Roughly what one link from that site is worth. Google consolidates the repeated copies, so the page count of the site is not a multiplier.

### Should I remove footer links from my own site?

Keep the ones a visitor looks for and drop the rest. A footer of a hundred links passes little to each page and buries the few that matter.

### Do sitewide links need nofollow?

Only if they are paid or exchanged, in which case use rel sponsored. An editorial credit or a genuine partner link does not need one.

### Does Google penalise sitewide links?

Google neutralises most link spam rather than penalising the target. The exception is a manual action, which is reserved for sites with a pattern of buying links.

## Read next

- [Link juice](https://porteur.ai/glossary/link-juice): Link juice is slang for the value a link passes, properly called link equity. What PageRank documents, what is folklore, and what to do on your site.
- [Internal link](https://porteur.ai/glossary/internal-link): An internal link is a link between two pages on the same site. Use them to show which pages matter, pass context with anchor text, and lift rankings.
- [Nofollow link](https://porteur.ai/glossary/nofollow-link): What a nofollow link is, what changed in 2019, how to check rel values, when to use nofollow, sponsored or ugc, and the traps to avoid.
- [Internal linking for a small site: which pages link to which](https://porteur.ai/guides/internal-linking-for-seo): Decide which pages rank. Build hubs, write clear anchors, fix orphans, and crawl your site to map links you control.
- [Link farm](https://porteur.ai/glossary/link-farm): A link farm is a network of sites that sell or swap links to pass ranking. Here is why it harms small sites, how to spot it, and what to do.
- [Private blog network](https://porteur.ai/glossary/private-blog-network): What a private blog network is, why Google treats it as link spam, how to spot PBN links, what to do if you bought them, and the traps to avoid.
- [Black hat SEO](https://porteur.ai/glossary/black-hat-seo): Black hat SEO tries to game search with cloaking, link schemes and more. It may work briefly, then brings demotion or removal. Here is how to avoid it.

The free check reads the links inside your site and the ones pointing at it, then names what to change first, in about thirty seconds. Free check: https://porteur.ai/