buckworks - 3:57 pm on Oct 4, 2003 (gmt 0)

Having one site link to you 400 times won't hurt you.

It's not cross-linking unless you link back. If you linked back to that site 400 times, that might be risky. A certain amount of cross-linking is reasonable, but no one knows how much is "too much".

I can't prove this, but I think that it's when cross-linking between your own sites is all you've got for links that they're more likely to be seen as manipulation and devalued. Getting more links from outside sources will give you a wider margin of safety.

In post #12 above, NetWizard described two sites that link to each other heavily, but also mentioned that "each have their own unique group of backlinks." Note that last point: I think it's the secret here.