Hi, i need some answers here. I have two sites in one niche, despite I use different web hosting services, but I didn't want to lie about my whois information. So I registered my own name in both websites. And because these sites are in one niche, i used my second site to build (only) one backlink to my first site, and the link also looks natural (without any anchor text). But until today, my second site never ranked in any competitive keywords. It has been up since 6 months ago, never bought links, never wrote any hidden text, etc. I'm not an aggresive link builder but I'm just wondering if this is happening because I link my second site to my first site? Well, my first site gets the first rank in its targeted keyword since 5 months ago and i also have 1 other site in other niche which until today sit on the third position of its targeted keyword (and it's a competitive one). But i'm just wondering how could my newest site doesn't have any position in competitive keywords? I have checked it through geoseo.com and my site is even not in the top 1,000 which i think (if not because of sandbox), it should be at least in the top 20! But 6 months is too old for sandbox so I wonder if this is a penalty or what?
You need to get some links to the newest site. As long as the newest site is unique content it should be ranking. Start some link building. Don't be afraid to link your sites together if they are related and the link would benefit your visitors. Just don't over do it like putting a ton of links from every site to every other site in the footer of every page and you'll be fine.
It's not really a "penalty" as you put it but yes, Google will "discount" the link sometimes if you have the same whois info and not count it for as much as it normally would. Remember, they are a registrar and they do use that info. It does not always happen but it can happen, yes.
How can you know about this and what's the solution? I need to change the whois record or make it private? and as I said earlier, I ONLY give one link from my newer site to my older site and that's it. No other relation between these two sites but I'm still wondering why i even not in the top 1,000. @freelisttool: I always keep building links and even if I had less than 200 different links , i would be still in the top 30 since this keyword is not too competitive. but outside top 1,000? Something must be missing.
are you sure? because I have read somewhere (probably in Matt Cutts blog) that one of some simple keys to SEO is to provide whois record (name, address, etc.). If i remember, he doesn't want us to hide our whois record.
Just need more confirmation and more proofs about this, can someone tells me what to do? I'm still a little bit confused (read my replies in this thread)