Sitewide Links

Sitewide links are links that appear on every page of a website, typically in the footer, the header or a fixed sidebar. Because they repeat across every subpage, a single sitewide link can register thousands of times in a raw link count, and Google treats them differently from ordinary links.

Internal sitewide links: the spine of navigation

On a site's own pages, sitewide links are natural. The main menu and the footer are sitewide, and they tell visitors and search engines which pages matter most, while distributing authority from every subpage. What goes in the menu and the footer is a genuine SEO decision, and the guide to internal link building places it in the wider structure.

External sitewide links weigh less

The picture changes when the link points inward from another site, such as a sponsor logo or a web agency's credit in a footer. Google's algorithms recognize the pattern and weigh a sitewide link from one domain as one link rather than a thousand. When the link also carries commercial anchor text across an entire site, it resembles paid link building, which is what the spam systems look for. An editorial link inside relevant content on a single page is worth more than the same link repeated in a footer on a thousand pages, and sponsorship links normally carry rel="sponsored" or nofollow. Building a link profile that holds is the subject of the guide to link building.