I have three websites all hosted on the same server. Each site has about 350 internal pages that I optimize for 3 keywords each. Each page has different content, but the internal pages are optimized for the same keywords for each site. For example, I have a German shepherd page on each of the three websites and each page has its own content, but is optimized for the same keywords; “German shepherdâ€, “German shepherd breedersâ€, etc My question is: would Google or any other SE penalize or have a problem if I linked all of my relevant pages together? Meaning, each page from the three sites would link its corresponding page on the two opposite sites, so each page on website A, would have a link to its related page on website B and C and vise versa for website B and C linking to website A.
Well, from all accounts, you're talking about interlinking sites within the same IP range, which is something that Google, by all accounts, really began to crack down on in 2003. Personally, I would entirely try to avoid interlinking sites within the same IP range - in fact, I would also be very careful on how I interlinked sites - using a linear system (ie, A -> B + C) rather than link sites completely is a personally preferred tactic. In this instance, I'd recommend you develop sites specifically about the section you want to promote, use unique content, and host them in entirely different datacenteres within your main target country. Then promote these, and link to your relevant sections on your main 3 sites.
Great advice. And in fact the situation you are describing may actually be hurting you. I sometimes link to my own sites but very rarely and only when they are with different hosts entirely. It is more to drive traffic than for SEO benefit. You are much better off getting links in other ways as the last thing you want your network of sites to be considered as is a Link Farm
Would it make a difference if the sites or at least two of them were on different servers and I changed up the anchor texts. Could you explain further what you mean by a linear linking system? Thanks for your help Noah
Thanks for all your advice. It helps a lot. Basically, my situation is that I'm helping optimize these three Dog related websites for my step-fathers business. www.------.com, www.-----.com, and a third that is not online yet. Each site has its own individual dog breed page and each dog breed page on -----.com and -----.com is already linked to each other with ineffective anchor texts, not as an SEO tactic, but because the webmaster doesn't know any better. My boss wants to launch another site, which would be a dog breed information site and interlink that one with -----.com and -----.com in the same manner. Currently, ----- and ----- are on different servers, but that may change and the third site, as I mentioned is not up yet. Would my best course of action be just to keep -----.com and -----.com linked but change the anchor text with effective keywords (and so it won’t all be the same) and not bother to link the new dog breed info site to ----- and ----- in the same method. Or, would it be OK to link the new website to just one of the websites? Or, should I just completely cut out all the massive linking and only link specific sites I’m trying to promote. Or something else????? Thanks sooo much, Noah
linear linking system: Site A -> Site B -> Site C - does NOT link back to Site A You can't really draw any kind of relationship between the sites with this linking structure... Well, not as easily as if Site A -> Site B -> Site C -> Site A.... concentric link circles
I was doing exactly what you are describing. Every page on most of my sites contained a footer which linked to all of my other sites. Penalty: None When I removed these footer links, traffic fell slightly. On the flip side, my AdSense ads became more relevant and my AdSense revenue went way up.
I've noramlly heard this called triangular linking although I suppose without Site C going back Site A the triangle is not complete.
I can hardly imagine that a site with three relevant links per page is going to be considered a "link farm". My advice is to keep on doing excatly what you are doing. Use the best anchor text you can and don't worry about all the rest of the crap. Google's results today are so irratic that nobody knows what is going on. I certainly wouldn't change my whole world for them.
Quite agree, sounds more like a good resource page to me… I guess... it's called linear linking because it's real easy to draw site D, E, F, etc. into the equation.