Site networks - need different hosting?

Say I had 5 sites, each promoting a similar product. I then linked them all together would I get penalised at all by Google?

At the moment I have freeipodsetc.co.uk which is a general site.

Then free-apple-macbook-air.co.uk which is an item specific site.

If I bought freeps3.co.uk and freexbox360.co.uk and then linked all these sites to each other would google penalise.

They would all be hosted with hostgator.

What should I do?

Cheers

 

This would be considered a link scheme according to Google's Webmaster Quality Guidelines. The reason is that your only linking the sites to manipluate search results and have your site(s) appear higher in the results. Now, what Google would say is use the rel="nofollow" attribute, this gives no value to the outbound links but can still produce traffic.

 

Sounds like a good plan.

 

its a good pratice not to inter link you sites promote them individually and try to host them on different servers and keep in mind that dont interlink them with each other because its not good practice. However if you dint want to host them on individual server then its ok but dont interlink them

 

I only have two sites. Will having them linked be OK?
If I make more sites I will use nofollow.

 

I would stress not even to doing that. How about you link one to the other only, meaning pick one to get a one-way backlink and one to give the external link.

 

I guess I should do higher PR to worse PR site. Then the reciprical can be nofollow. That sound good to you?

Rep added.

 

The whole concept is you shouldn't link them at all, unless they both use the nofollow attribute. Chances of it hurting you are slim, but are you will to take that chance? If so, then go ahead, just remember we had this discuss and there should be no complaints on DP if you get negative results

Trust me when I tell you this, build quality unique content in return that alone will generate the backlinks to you need to make your site thrive in search results. Remember, relevant one-way backlinks are the best you can get. Best of luck.

 

Thing is, the site is about free ipods yes. I've written all I can about that. Now when I add news stories or other information those particular pages never get ranked and are completely unrelated to the other parts of the site.

I'm stuck in a circle where the people visiting are looking for a free ipod so don't look at the rest of the site so that doesn't get linked so people only come to visit the free ipod pages.

Do you think you can help me out as I saw your thread with SEO analysis. Wondering if it's worth me trying! The site is quite a niche and I've managed to reach number 1 for one keyphrase so I'm sure someone good could get there in no time!

Cheers man