I have 2 sites that are related. One is a simple site that I designed to experiment with, the other is my main site. The 2 sites are hosted on different accounts. Here is the question: Many sites that have a decent pr will link to me if I link back to them, so could I theoretically give them my main site url for the link to me, and give them their link back from the secondary site? I think this will make the links on my main site appear more organic. Is there anything wrong with this plan?
When you say the sites are hosted on different accounts, that intrigues me. Why should that matter? I have two new websites parked on top of my initial (main) site. Just because they share the same IP address, does this mean the search engines will consider a link from one to be a link from the other two as well? Each has it's own unique URL of course. Still learning about this, obviously As far as what you're trying to do, yes, I think it would be a good thing for your main site. It's almost like a 3-way link exchange, except one site is getting screwed.
Saying "if you link to A I'll link back to you" and then linking from B not A sounds like scamming to me - unless, of course you say "you link to my good site and I'll link back to you from my crappy site that no one visits. Thanks!"
Well the person placing the link would need to approve where you will be placing the link. I am just saying what this link method is referred to as.
I think I may not have explained myself well enough.. The second site is not a crappy site. It's linked and themed with the first site but devoted to the maintenance of the product. Since it is more of a technical site, I am not working on the PR of the site so much as traffic. Both sites have the same PR and I am trying to develop them both to be top notch sites. If I have something I want to try out, to see if it works, I do it on the second site... That's all. My question was both technical and ethical: Can it be done? Is it common practice? Should it be done? I have not done this yet. I have heard about 3 way link exchange thought this might be a method that had been used before. If you guys think it is unethical, then I won't do it. I am just trying to get some decent PR for the main site without having to place a bunch of reciprocal links. You guys know lots more about this stuff than I do, so I wanted to ask about it before I did something stupid.
I would think if you're going to disclose this to the person BEFORE doing the link exchange, there's nothing wrong with it. But don't promise the person you're linking from site A, and then just link to him from site B without saying anything in hopes he's "cool with it" (or won't notice). That's a little greasy. Just because you deem the sites to be similar or the same doesn't mean the person swapping does.
I agree with Vozzek. I think that if the person you're linking with knows then it's not a problem. You could even spin it as a benefit for both since recip linking doesn't give as good results.
Hmm... Let them know that the link you are going to link to them is different to the link they going to link on.
I've been thinking about it for a couple of hours now and I believe this is a dishonest strategy, so I will not use it. When I get some decent PR on both sites, then I will just e-mail a 3 way link proposal to my prospects and see if they are up to it. I just had the idea and threw it out there to see what you guys thought. Thanks for the help, I appreciate it.
I don't think there is anything unethical about this and I'm not sure what the fuss is about. I'm offered exchanges like this all the time. I don't turn them down because it's unethical, I turn them down because when I look at the page my link will be placed on it's usually a crap link farm page with hundreds of unrelated irrelevant links on a single page, making my link worthless. It's not because of ethics. As long as you say "If you link to my site A, I'll give you a link back on my site B, which will be placed on page mydomain.com/mylinkpage.htm" you're being totally upfront. You're telling someone exactly where their link will be placed and they can decide if they want to make this exchange or not. These kind of link exchanges happen every day. If site B is a crap site they can just say no. What's unethical about that? He never said he was going to "bait and switch" links with people, which would be wrong.
I think as long as you disclose your plan, and your link partner is ok with it, I guess you are fine. However, I doubt many people will link to you if you only give them a bad link back. Value for Value!
I think the problem is that some of you are assuming I am going to offer a link to a crap site. That's not my intention. I intend to offer a link to a great site, I just want to avoid the reciprocal links.
This sounds like cheating on the backlink site. Linking back means they want you to link from the site you have applied for the link.
make a blog /blog/ directory inside one of the pages, then just start to blog about stuff. Then link to each of those blog posts Inner PR is very important
The idea would be more feasible if it's a one way link from the site which you experiment with pointing to your main site. Simple as that.