Confused About Run of Site Links

What's your experience with Run-of-Site links?

[thewebshop]

I've read several articles stating that Run-of-Site links can wreak havoc on your rankings so you should stay away from them, however I've also read that since you can't control who links to you, the most that can happen is that a run-of-site link won't help you at all.

I'm a little confused as to which of these is the truth behind run-of-site links.

The reason I'm asking is that I work for a web design company who puts their link in the footer of just about every website we do. Is this a bad thing, a good thing, or does it even affect us at all?

Anyone with previous experience having some advice in the matter would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[howardam]

In Search Engine Land this month, there is a case study about a run-of-the site link. It shows that, at least in that case, the introduction of the links directly corresponded to a drop in the engines and rank only started increasing after the link was removed.

[KaloVast]

So run-of-site links tend to hurt the website where the link is located?

I would think from the perspective of a visitor... if i like the design of the website, I can click the link to possibly get something like that for my own site. Might hurt in the search engine rankings but help the design firm. Although i would think the main goal is helping the site itself, not the firm.

[thewebshop]

Well, the reason it's confusing me is that in the case study, (which is probably the same one I read) the site owner claimed that he/she had someone link to their site to "HELP" the site owner but the ROS links actually ended up hurting the rankings.

This would mean that if a company who had say a network of sites they could easily insert a link onto suddenly decided to link to a particular competitor for one of their key phrases with the intent of making it look like a purchased ROS link, they could essentially sabotage that company's rankings very easily.

Isn't this also known as a Google Bomb and didn't Google say they corrected the issue already? If they did in fact correct it, then the ROS links from the case study should not have caused even a blip on the radar as far as rankings were concerned because the company targeted by the ROS links had no control over who links to them.

I'm beginning to suspect that it was the sudden spike in the number of links that caused the problem with the rankings and not the ROS links themselves. Anyone else agree?

[Learning Never Ends]

In my perspective, it is good for your firm in respect of driving potential visitor, cause if your client's site looks eye savvy to the visitor of that site and is interested in developing/designing his own site, he'll offcource curious to know "who has designed/developed this site?"
Well for ROS reputation in search engines: SE are smart now and they will count it as only one link, no matter on how many pages you have taken a link of that site and yes you'll loose the grandness of link, Also you cannot ignore the Google Bombing factor, i agree with "thewebshop" You have to be smart while placing your site's link.