Penalty or not?

Having 3 websites linking to another 10 websites, all having the same IP and about the same content. would this be considered penalty or clones?

 

I'm also wondering - I'm making several sites in the same niche and will link a few - if they are on the same ip is the link devalued?

 

Google looks at the interlinked IP addresses - if they are all on the same "C" block, depending on the content of the sites, you may have some issues to overcome in getting those sites ranked.

 

If the sites are relevant in content, it usually wont affect you negatively. Although, it probably wont help you much either. If the sites are not relevant in content and on the same C-Class IP, it could negatively affect your rankings.

 

Why are you interested in this? it's a kind of blackhat...

 

What's C-class IP? - C block? Thanks guys - learning here all the time!!

 

I'm pretty sure it would be considered "crosslinking", something that Matt Cutts warned about.

 

"and about the same content"

Sites with same content? why are you making duplicate sites?

I think google do penalize for duplicate content.

 

Same niche not same content
eg one has news, the other is a big gallery, the other is a youtube clone for the niche...

Isn't it true that hosting companies have thousands of sites on the same IP - so couldn't cross linking happen naturally?

 

If they have the same content, only one can rank anyway. So the other sites serve no purpose.