XF 2.0 Branding link removal for SEO purposes?

[jjff]

Hi.

Does Xenforo require the footer Xenforo branding to be a HTML link or can it be a plain text branding notice?

Are we allowed to remove the a href link surrounding the branding notice? I'm thinking in terms of SEO, not having a sitewide link to another site maybe could help.

I tried searching for this specific question but could not find it. Sorry if it's been asked before.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ozzy47]

You may not alter the text and the link has to remain. You are able to purchase the branding removal though.

 

[Paul B]

I tried searching for this specific question but could not find it.

It's explained in the license agreement: https://xenforo.com/license-agreement/

All copies of the Software must contain the same proprietary notices that appear on and in the Software, including all copyright notices embedded in the Software, which must remain unaltered from the original and visible at all times, unless by specific prior arrangement with XenForo Limited.

 

[jjff]

OK understood. Thanks folks.

 

[djbaxter]

Are we allowed to remove the a href link surrounding the branding notice? I'm thinking in terms of SEO, not having a sitewide link to another site maybe could help.

Even if there were to be a negative SEO effect (doubtful), the effect would be on the target site (Xenforo.com), not on your site.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Yes, I think things have moved on from the old days of Google of thinking that outbound links "leaked" something from your site. They can still be bad when perceived as dodgy links, e.g. link farms (remember them?)

 

[jjff]

Even if there were to be a negative SEO effect (doubtful), the effect would be on the target site (Xenforo.com), not on your site.

Yeah, makes sense, if too many bad neighborhood were to link to XF. But I guess XF's high quality links outweigh the bad ones.

I was thinking about technical number of outgoing links from old school SEO (as mentioned in the next msg by Mr Lucky).

The copyright notice doesn't bother me at all as a user, in fact I'm proud of it - but was just wondering about a SEO perspective.

Yes, I think things have moved on from the old days of Google of thinking that outbound links "leaked" something from your site. They can still be bad when perceived as dodgy links, e.g. link farms (remember them?)

Yeah. Not to give out my age or anything, but I got into SEO in 1996 . Good times.

 

[djbaxter]

I was thinking about technical number of outgoing links from old school SEO (as mentioned in the next msg by Mr Lucky).

That was when PageRank was still the #1 ranking factor and everyone was going nuts trying to sculpt linking. In fact, outgpoing links never reduced PageRank of the source page - it just shared the PR of the source page among all outgoing links, internal as well as external.

Yeah. Not to give out my age or anything, but I got into SEO in 1996 . Good times.

About the same for me... good times. Life was a lot simpler back then.