Often when you finish a web design and launch it then you want to tell the world about the work you’re proud of. This urge is common, but how do you tell everyone and reap the benefits of the self promotion? Obviously you can add the work to your website or online portfolio, tweet/post about it, write a press release and sign the work with an Attribution tag back to your portfolio. We’ve all seen them, the “Web Design by SuperDuper Interactive” line at the bottom of a page – essentially a signature of your work. Artist’s sign their work why shouldn’t designers?
Example of an attribution link
First, you were hired to create an web design and brand (along with a usable interface!) for the client. By completing the work for them you are giving them that brand, not claiming it as your own. When you sell a painting you are still selling your image, not the buyer’s. This is main reason I don’t advocate using anchor tags – the brand is no longer yours, but transferred to the client.
Second, You are taking search rank from your clients. For most clients SEO is important, adding the ‘web design by…’ line does not benefit your client, even if you are adding a rel=”nofollow” property.
I understand this can be a powerful tool to obtain more work – but I think it is even more powerful to give your clients the best web design you can and then reap the benefits of referrals.
Honest questions:
1) What if you’re not hired to create a web design and brand? What if you’re just a *web developer* and not a branding expert/ui expert. What if the site is just for a silly club, for example? – I feel like a majority of “web design by so and so” links are on these types of low profile sites. So what’s the harm?
2)Can you explain to me how it takes away search rank from clients? – I agree, I don’t see how it benefits, but how does it hurt?
3)”And then reap the benefits of referrals” – Is the link itself not a referral?
You bring up some good points Eric.
1) I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a footer saying “web development by SuperDuper” If the site is for a small club, I can see this not being a big deal, but the context we are discussing is for paying clients, regardless if they are low profile or gargantuan corporations, they both deserve the best.
2) Search rank and everything involved is a huge topic, but the gist of it is that links out of a page pass their page rank to the sites they link to.
3)I don’t view the link as a referral, perhaps an unsolicited one, but I would say the link is definitely more of an advertisement than a referral, yes?
What I do is… I ask the client if he would allow me to place an attribution link on his page. If he declines, I drop the subject and leave it out. If not, I place a small logo on the page. That’s it. I always ask the client beforehand, and always agree to what they wish – they are, in fact, always right.
Hi there! I have been wondering much about whether or not to put attribution links or not – and I loved being able to read someone else’s perspective.
More often I find, it depends on what the client wants – just like Brian has concluded – I’ve had some clients who WANT me to put a link up there. Some, don’t say anything about it and it doesn’t go up there. Or even still, some are pro-bono sites for organizations and once you’ve up and left that institution, there should be some message some place about who to contact should the site need updating even if officers change. i.e. website management changes with the officers but perhaps someone has a question about the design or wants to change something and would like to ask approval etc in the future…
99% of my clientele is due to referrals even though not all my sites have attribution links. And yes, I do agree that if you do a great job, word-of-mouth client referral is much more powerful than an attribution link!
My meat-and-potatoes question about attribution links, however, is more for finding out whether or not there’s some go around for finding out who designed the site in the first place without having to PUT an attribution on there! Meaning, there are plenty of sites that I stumble upon that I’m loving the design and immediately scroll the length of the site to find the attribution link or some form of contact – only to find none. So, I sit and marvel but can’t figure out who in the world designed it. And, googling “designer for xyz site” doesn’t always produce the desired results….and! there are way too many designers out there to creatively think of one in your head to google search…
Thoughts?
Thank you!!
whoa, I’ve never had a client request an attribution link! hope that doesn’t say anything about my designs :O haha
You’re totally right about how nice it is to find out who designed a site if you liked it, I’ve done this many times before. this would make me inclined to post it, but I still feel its bad practice. would be nice if you could attach this info to Alexa or Compete or a who is search. seems like that would be the appropriate place.
:)
You guys should check out humans.txt
I think it’s a pretty good way to get the design/development on there without screwing with the design :) I add them to all my sites now.
awesome! I will be using that from now on!
On a site for a gallery, I put “design by (my website)” at the bottom below the shadow, like off the page, but with no link to click. So would that be an acceptable way to get around the problem?
(The viewer who wants to know who designed it can find me, but no link to take them off the site they are on.)