I am new to this and have questions for vetrans of the co-op as to help me figure out the best strategy.... I have 2 sites. Site 1: A top ranked site on G, MSN, and Yahoo for very competitive terms. It has 75,000 pages indexed by G, with dozens of PR6's and and 7,000+ backlinks. It ranks top 3 for every keyword I target and has done so for the last year (unaffected by Bourbon or any other update). The site is 3+ years old. Site 2: It's a brand new domain but being used for a site that has 6,000 pages indexed in Google. The site will grow steadily each day. It currently has no PR. It could use a good boost in SERPS Both site 1 and 2 are for different industries and there is no overlap or duplicate content.. they are completly independent.. on separate IP's as well. Should I.... a) Run the co-op on Site 1 as to help quickly boost the ranking for Site 2.. Although a lot of quick backlinks quick for site 2 could be a red flag and not help site 2 in the long run b) Run the co-op on Site 2 as to help push Site 1 to #1.. I like getting backlinks for #1 and a quick 1,000 back links may not be a red flag, because I have all of the content and other back links to back it up. c) Run the co-op on Site 2 as to help push Site 2 into the ranks. and then rely on the page building for Site 2 to help substantiate it's position in SERPS and reduce the red flag prospect. I see alot of people using this co-op where they have 2 sites, and the one that gets the boost is the one not runing the co-op links, but just being the advertised site. My initial thought is that I shouldn't use the co-op at all for Site #1 because I may blow it and I have worked hard to achieve the results that I have. And I have read about expriements in this forum where there was a Yahoo banning on a site that had a lot of co-op links pointing to it (a Charity site that had no sustainable or growing content - so all the links would obviously be a big red flag without the content to back it up) Any thoughts would be appreciated.
I would say your initial thoughts are right, from what you have said you would be safer putting the ads on site 2 and advertising site 2. Site 1 sounds good where it is! If site 2 is new and doesnt have a PR then your weight will not be alot anyway, well, not enough to give you enough weight to raise backlink flags by the SE's.
Whatever you decide make sure you vary the anchor text and add some deep links as well to make it appear more natural.
My Personal opinion is that you build site # 2 as your usual way and put co-op on it to boost site #1 to achieve the no. 1 for site #1.