Insite linking

[liamgt]

A site that i have been looking at ranks very well in google. Lets say for arguments sake the site sells widgets and is called websitename.com. From the homepage of this website there is are several links to websitename.com's 4 or 5 sub sites. An example of of these links would be:

Anchor Text: Discount widgets
url: [discount-widgets.com....] or

Anchor Text: Discount blue fuzzy widgets
url: [discount-blue-fuzzy-widgets.com....]

The rest of the links are similar so hopefully you get the idea. Anyway if you click on these links you dont get taken to [discount-widgets.com...] but rather [websitename.com...] which is the same site.

Is this an attempt at spamming google?

liam

[Yidaki]

>Is this an attempt at spamming google?

Does the site sell ie birdcages instead of widgets?

If not, if the site(s) is(are) really about widgets, it's not a attempt to spam but a attempt to gain better positions ...

[heini]

Not a big deal.
Alternative scenarios:
- all subdomains are broken out as the links suggest and are in fact seperate sites. You'd probably accuse them of crosslinking :)
- links from the main site go directly to the subdomains. With the correct anchor text the effect would be the same

[Yidaki]

One more thing ... i didn't read your initial post carefully enough:

>if you click on these links you dont get taken to
>http://discount-widgets.com but rather [websitename.com...]
>which is the same site.

Google is pretty smart in figuring out (deceptive) redirects and they also offer a webmasters tool [google.com] to help them if they can't figure it by themselfs.

However i wouldn't ask if this is spam or not but if it's of longterm value and if it satisfies the searcher.

<added>heini, this is not the thread about subdomains. ;)</added>

[heini]

>not the thread about subdomains
Hmm, ya.
Interestingly I don't think it changes much about my argument :)
It depends on the way the redirect is set up. If it's a proper 301 then it should be okay, I guess.

What I would worry about however is the user experience. I for one would not be happy with a site giving out links pretending to lead to a different site only to redirect me to the same site again.