DragonByte Tech Branding (Split from Thoughts on branding )

[Decado]

And some people set the link as "no-follow" so it doesn't do you any good at all.
There is also the the problem that Google may be ( it's not confirmed) treating branding links as spam, which isn't doing your SEO a lot of favours either.

All of our links are no-follow already. They're not there for the SEO juice (which you would know if you read the post).

 

[Joeychgo]

And some people set the link as "no-follow" so it doesn't do you any good at all.
There is also the the problem that Google may be ( it's not confirmed) treating branding links as spam, which isn't doing your SEO a lot of favours either.

and I doubt its doing the linking sites much good either.

 

[Joeychgo]

It's less about whether the branding on one persons board is worth more than them buying the mod, and more about the overall economics of the situation. The copyright footer is an extremely effective way of letting people who are potential customers find out where to get the products. It's hard to do the calculations with exact numbers, but based on the feedback we have the percentage of potential customers who don't buy our product because it would put a copyright link in the footer is somewhere around or below 5%.

When we look at the potential lost income from that 5% and compare it with the potential lost income from it becoming more difficult for people to find our mods via the copyright links (which is something we can more or less track via google analytics), it works out that it would cost us quite a bit to ditch the footer in terms of lost sales - more than we would gain from people who dislike the copyright branding.

Which is all fine with me. I just choose not to use your products because of it. That's the beauty of things. We all make our own choices.

 

[Decado]

Which is all fine with me. I just choose not to use your products because of it. That's the beauty of things. We all make our own choices.

Yup. My intention wasn't to convert you or claim you were wrong or something. I was just explaining the data & thought process behind the decision. I try to be as open and transparent about the reasons behind our decisions as much as possible, especially those that are unpopular with some people. I completely understand people who don't want to have branding on their sites at all and choose not to use our products as a result.

I don't understand people who hate us for it so much that they feel the need to accuse us of copyright infringement, though

Iain

 

[Joeychgo]

I don't hate you Decado or Dragonbyte. I just make a choice. Your entitled to do whatever you feel is best for your business, as am I.

 

[we_are_borg]

Google gives websites a penalty when the footer link is to optimized lets say keywords that come back in all links. This website explains a lot what is and is not acceptable in the footers.

 

[Jack_Rouse]

Google gives websites a penalty when the footer link is to optimized lets say keywords that come back in all links. This website explains a lot what is and is not acceptable in the footers.

That article is previous to the discussion I read on the Google Webmaster forum, and that discussion involving Google was not conclusive either, the best advice was not to place, or allow links to be placed in the footer of your website, other than a direct URL, and it would be better for it to be no follow, even better would be to add a copyright statement without any form of link.
You have to remember that footer links are historical, and were established well before Penguin and Panda, they were seen as a benefit to the website and the link holder, links now are only really any good if they are within niche

 

[ozzy47]

Then why does TAZ have six links in the footer, besides the one for XF, that are all external, and are not nofollow?

I assume it is not hurting them in the slightest.

 

[we_are_borg]

That article is previous to the discussion I read on the Google Webmaster forum, and that discussion involving Google was not conclusive either, the best advice was not to place, or allow links to be placed in the footer of your website, other than a direct URL, and it would be better for it to be no follow, even better would be to add a copyright statement without any form of link.
You have to remember that footer links are historical, and were established well before Penguin and Panda, they were seen as a benefit to the website and the link holder, links now are only really any good if they are within niche

Well they know that repeating patterns are bad for SEO especially keywords i think most are clear about that. But also links like where wording is the same on many sites they take a look at that. Its interesting to know that some stuff is not acceptable any more. But Google is not confirming anything about this so time will tell.

 

[ozzy47]

Then why does TAZ have six links in the footer, besides the one for XF, that are all external, and are not nofollow?

I assume it is not hurting them in the slightest.

Also what about the eleven links that is in the banners in the footer? Those are all external and not nofollow as well.

So that is seventeen external not nofollow links.

 

[Decado]

Might be worth pointing out that we have received no google penalties and are at or near the top of google search results for all of our targeted keywords (vBulletin addons, vBulletin mods, vBulletin custom etc). If no-follow links hurt SEO, we would have felt it since we currently have links on tens to hundreds of millions of individual pages.

Edit: We also saw no such penalties several years ago when the links were not no-follow. We changed them to be on the safe side following the release of google penguin, IIRC. We've not seen any penalty from the millions of pages still linking to us with followed links who didn't update the mods, though.

Iain

 

[HWS]

People, there IS a choice! Either don't buy such add-ons or buy the branding free option also if you don't like the branding!

Its the developers decision only how his branding looks and works like.

If you feel it may hurt you, just ... see above...

 

[cheat_master30]

Or set the links to nofollow...

*shot*

 

[ozzy47]

They are already nofollow.

 

[cheat_master30]

Remove the links and keep just the text?

And tell them to sue if they complain.

 

[Alex.]

Sure it is. Why would it be illegal for another coder to write a script, that does the same thing, but using his/her own code?

The way you worded it made it seem as if you meant it would be coded verbatim as well. I'm well aware of software that do the same thing.

 

[ozzy47]

Remove the links and keep just the text?

And tell them to sue if they complain.

They would just DCMA your host, and your host would tell you to put it back, remove the mod from the site, or discontinue your hosting with them.

 

[BirdOPrey5]

To be fair DMCA allows the person being targeted to respond with an acknowledgement but also refuse to comply. In that case the host becomes safe from litigation and it would be up to the person/entity making the DMCA claim to bring an actual suit against the person/entity they are claiming the violation against.

Wouldn't be a smart move for someone to refuse the DMCA takedown order, but possible.

 

[ozzy47]

True, but in most cases I have seen, the host will tell the offender to shove off, cause they don't want to be involved.

 

[BirdOPrey5]

True, but in most cases I have seen, the host will tell the offender to shove off, cause they don't want to be involved.

Legally they are not involved once the 'suspect' acknowledges the message and claims it to be in error. If the host kicks someone off at that point they are a poor host. Mistaken or unofficial DMCA requests are made all the time. Your host should follow the law not make it up.