Pacing reciprocal links and links from client sites

[DXL]

I have a two part question: First, should reciprocal links or links from directories be added at a certain pace? I may have read that if you get too many backlinks at one time, this is bad for your site. I need to make sure I don't get 20 backlinks to a brand new site in the same week if that's going to hurt how its indexed (though if its a site that I just launched, its not like its in the Search engines yet).

Second, I have a good number of client websites that are PR2-PR5. Almost all would be okay with me putting links to my other clients sites on their own link page, though this is something I don't presently do. Is it a bad idea for me to cross link client sites? (have 10 links on each client's links page to other sites I designed).

I'm trying to stay white hat through and through.

[Robert Charlton]

Is it a bad idea for me to cross link client sites?

I feel it is. It would mark all your clients very quickly as related to each other, and in my opinion would end up hurting all of them.

This is where I think a lot of SEO companies do their clients a grave disservice. I keep client sites very separate from each other.

[DXL]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll avoid the cross linking then. What about the pace at which links are added? Will it hurt any of my client sites if I get 10-15 links from other sites within the course of a week or two?

[jfodale]

I launched a site about 2 months ago. I acquired about fifty backlinks in its first week. Today, its performing fine in the SERPs. I think its not a problem as long as we're not talking about thousands of backlinks within the first couple days of the sites existance. That would be a bit ... unnatural for link development.

[DXL]

Thanks for the feedback. I doubt I'd even be about to acquire 50 backlinks in the first week. I've found about 20 solid directories with a good PR value and not too many links per page. Aside from that, I'm only trying to get links from sites related to the client's site. I just wanted to make sure that adding 20 backlinks in a week wouldn't hurt a new site.