Numerous people with new websites have asked me to explain what I call the "Google Same Site" penalty. When you have too many links from one site to another and reciprocated, when the websites are targeting the same search term, Google can show only one website for the search term = Google same site penalty. It's then very hard to get both sites pages showing for that same search term, and it's very easy to happen... * You get a new client, they need Google PR and a link from an authoritive site, and your sites have both of these. You then want credit from that website that you have done the SEO/web design. Your business happens to have web pages SEO'ed for the same industry/area and so you have pages that target the same term - say on your reciprocal links directory. * You have a friendly business in the same area, or same industry. You want to help each other out and so have whole of site links reciprocated. You target the same search terms - industry or area, and find only one of the two sites is showing high on Google for that search term. * You trade site maps for your sites, so that you only have one link on your site per your friends pages, but you have all or the main pages of your friends website. * You use the co-op for all your websites, and you just happen to get many links between those websites via the co-op. I use a hack on the Co-op php file to not show my own sites. * Now the controversial one (I havn't decisively proved this one) - If you have too many sig links from a forum, merely the actual link on your sig, or a thread entitled with your search term could be enough to trigger the same Google same site penalty. The PR and authority status of the forum is so high, it can be enough that the forum is shown for the search term, and your site is not shown. * If you have a multi language website, and you have multiple links to the same site because you have pages duplicated one for each language. If the other sites then has a number of links back to you... (Again, I have not proved this one, but it seems possible for there to be an issue with this scenario) Proof of the Google same site penalty I have proved it many times - when you optimize one page a little more than the other websites page, or have a little more anchor text or PR to that page, there will be a see saw effect - one site will be 1st/high for the term, and the other site will be 100th. Then you add some more PR/anchor text to your site and the see saw will again happen (I have not done this analysis on forum sigs) -- you then realize the problem, and want to remove links ... only problem is that both of you need each others PR etc for your other search terms that you are not competing against each other for. This is a great one for the co-op. Use weight on one that is ranking low, and see it pop up to 1st while the one that was first that also links to you, goes to say 100th ... if the penalty did not exist, you would get the sites fighting for the top two positions, rather than 1st and 100th. How to correct the Google same site penalty The only safe way to try and get out of Googles bad books is to delete all links between the sites (or use the rel=nofollow), and wait till Google fully updates all the pages of both sites. Some internal pages can take Google a while to spider again, and these links can be enough to continue the association between the websites for long after the links have been removed ... I have seen Google caches of pages that don't contain the reciprocal links, but those links are still showing on the Google Link: search. And Google still has the same site issue for those websites pages. rel=nofollow The new rel=nofollow is another great way -- have all the links between the sites as rel=nofollow so you can keep the links and not have the same site issue with Google; then once Google is showing both sites again for the same search terms, you can experiment with having one link between the sites that is a normal link. Code -- <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.website.com">keyword phrase</a> Triangular links If you really want to trade many links between sites, do it via a third site a links to c b links to a c links to b But you have got to be careful that Google has not determined the same site penalty on any of the sites concerned! I dont like triangular links in general, as you can end up giving a link to a person and get a link of little value in return - since that site can receive so little PR etc into it, that links from it are of little value. Bad triangular links - a is your site, a links to b c links to a c has very low PR since few link to it given the arrangement. Same IP range The problem can be heightened when the websites are from the same IP address range, but I believe that the situation can happen between any two sites that have too many reciprocal links. This is why you see many link requests mentioning that they are from different IP address ranges ... the situation can certainly still happen when you move say your clients website from your main hosting to a totally different host to try and remove the problem. The problem still stays until you have removed the links and Google has updated ALL those pages. How many is too many? Lesson learned: * Have a maximum 1 link between websites, maybe two, but don't push your luck as it can take months to get both websites showing for those search terms. * If you have multiple links from one website, make sure you don't have even one link back to that website. I don't know how many is too many, but it's best to keep it low. How do you know its the "same site penalty"? This is definitely the million dollar question ... there are so many penalties that can wreck your listings that it can be very hard to know what is happening -- one big issue seems to be that when you try too hard to get lots of links, and try too hard to SEO, that it's easy to go overboard in any one area, or get a link that wrecks you - ie a 302 link. With the new Google Patent application highlighting areas that Google either uses or would like to use, SEO is becoming that much more complicated - especially for competitive phrases where the fine points of the algorithm make so much difference. Hopefully, this will help many of you with your sites.
Hi Cody, This is really useful. One additional question - is there a reason links to your site are deleted from Google indexes? Toddy
Keep away from them too.. Link to what is useful for your users simple as that.. Ask to exchange link with these useful site.. Enjoy the read http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/communication-in-other-languages/
I don't believe this for a moment. A pair of sites can "see-saw", with one holding the 1st position and another the 100th, and this can flip one way or the other as updates are done to the sites? Can someone give some hard evidence for this - e.g. list a couple of site pairings, along with the targeted keywords, so people can see this see-saw behaviour in action? Howard