Multiple Sites linking to each other

[capsmaster]

Hello guys first post here, I was about to publish a bunch of sites that I own and was wondering will google penalize me for linking all of the sites together if they are all hosted together. Is there a limit of how many you can link to each other. Right now I have 10 and was wondering if I have to split them up so each site can link to one another.

[rickagain]

Hi Capsmaster

I too am making one of my first posts, and I too have similar questions about multiple sites.

I believe multiple sites on a single subject - for the sole purpose of trying to get one or more of the sites to rank well is wrong (x-linking for PR etc) - and Google tells us they don't like sites with similar content.

However, in my case I started with one site, then as my business grew (over the past 6 years) I added others. Each site is travel related and focuses on a single city.

I believe it makes sense for my visitors (who are always planning to travel) to see links to my other sites as they may be interested in traveling to more than one destination.

I also believe it makes sense for my business to tell the world (my visitors & advertisers) that we have a growing network of quality destination web sites.

Lately I've started to worry that the way in which I link to my other sites may trigger a penalty in Google (& other SE's). I used to have a links to each destination at the bottom of each core information page, I few months ago I removed all these links & put a single page on each site listing all the destination sites in our network.

Google now lists fewer back links to each of our sites, but it hasn't affected our ranking.

... BUT, I am also seeing more and more sites with multiple sites on a single subject, that go to great lengths to 'hide' the links on each of their sites, achieving better rankings.

This frustrates me a little, not just because they are cheating, but because many of them are very quick to tell their potential clients that they are 'expert' at search engine placement.

So, happy with my good rankings I don't worry too much, and feel Google will sort them out soon enough... but the longer it takes the more I begin to think I will be penalised by what ever Google eventually does to catch them.

Hope my experience helps, and hope it expands this discussion.

[sullen]

I'm not sure topic as such really matters. For example, if you are a web design company then it's perfectly OK to have links to your main site on the other sites (both from a Google point of view and from a webmaster ethics point of view).

What you need to make sure you avoid is anything that resembles a "link farm" - i.e. you should not link each site to every other site and to nothing else (especially if you have very few external links coming in).

I run several sites and I link all of them to our main company site. I also link some sites to some other sites (sometimes on-topic, sometimes not) and have never been penalised by Google. Just go easy on it!

[ogletree]

If you have a footer on each site with www.domain.com listings to the other sites there is no penalty. The only thing that might happen is that you dilute your PR. Your PR will be the same on each site. Lots of people do this. I will not hurt you it just won't help you. Before My new PR was calculated I had a PR3 on my main site and the rest were anywhere from PR0 to PR2. Now that the PR has been done after dominic they are all PR2. I have seen several sites that crosslink and each site has the same PR. It is a great way to get PR on all sites you just might loste some PR on the highes PR site. Sometimes you may not even see a whole number change. You might have a high PR5 before the cross link but have a low PR5 after the crosslink.

This is a normal thing for companies to do. There are many good reasons to do it. I want my customers to know about my other sites. Just don't do anythying weird like all kinds of different URL's all over the place crosslinking like a spiderweb. I know the footer thing works.

[rickagain]

Thanks ogletree - I may revert to having a footer as what I've got now looks a lot like a standard 'links' page.

All established sites in our network have PR 5 or 6... now that we link to our 'links' network page from each core page, each 'link' page also has a PR of 5 or 6.

So on the PR side of things it's probably even.

But as I didn't do it for the PR, the footer way would be more visitor friendly.

[capsmaster]

Thanks for the all the help guys, my plan is to put a footer on all the websites including the links to the other sites. They are all on the same topics, example blue widget, red wigets, green widgets, etc. We will see what happens, thanks again.