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There is some topic overlap, and I'd like to cross link some of the similar topic pages. So how many cross links would be safe to do between the pages with similar, but not duplicate, content? Do you have any rules of thumb to go by? Would five links each way be too much? I don't want to do anything that might be regarded as spam.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
If I had not found Webmasterworld, I probably would have ignorantly and blissfully cross linked the two sites to my hearts content, not ever knowing there might be anything wrong in doing so. But there's so many people in these forums who think they have penalties because of cross linking, I've gotten a bit paranoid about doing any of it. Perhaps I'm being overly cautious.
<edited to fixed typo>
[edited by: Jane_Doe at 12:38 am (utc) on Sep. 9, 2002]
As they say, eat an apple instead!
And you should be able too Jane_Doe. The fact that you, and all the rest of us, are now afraid too should speak volumes.
Nah, knowing all of the rules in advance would take all of the fun out of it. There'd be a lot less "thrill of adventure or agony of defeat". ;)
Like yourself I have (a handfull) of sites now. Last year was I was just a one site dude but now I have sold out and have several. What I have learned here is that the more "incoming links" you have the safer you are.
My stratagy has been NOT too cross link but too simply link to a site from an exsisting site. Make sense? I take the older site that has the incoming links and most often pagerank and link to my new site. This makes it even safer.
If your still worried (like me) then go out and start a links program and try to get as many links as you can to your newer sites. This way as mentioned before search engines will not see your "group" of sites as an island but rather as part of a web "community".
I have started to do this now with four sites and I have my fingers crossed. From what I have read here I feel this is the safest way to go. I have NOT cross-linked as mentioned before.
Chef Brian
>>...I probably would have ignorantly and blissfully cross linked the two sites to my hearts contentAnd you should be able too Jane_Doe. The fact that you, and all the rest of us, are now afraid too should speak volumes.
There -are- legitimate cases where two (or more) domains/site could be heavily cross-linked.
There are also cases where two+ domains are heavily cross-linked only for artificial purposes and yet doing well with G.
I guess that is life, though :)
For discussion's sake, and in honor of DILBERT, we'll call the main general-interest site "elbonia.com."
The special-interest "sites within a site" are:
- elboniacity.com, which redirects to elbonia.com/elboniacity
- northelbonia.com, which redirects to elbonia.com/northelbonia
- southelbonia.com, which redirects to elbonia.com/southelbonia
Every page of my site has navigation links to all four domains, because a reader of either the general-interest site or the "sites within a site" may be interested in the other topics. In other words, my site's structure is dictated by content and reader needs, not by SEO considerations.
Elbonia.com and its subtopics have been set up this way for nearly a year, and I haven't had any penalty from Google--probably because my site has more than 2,500 pages of editorial content and four domain names for that amount of content seems reasonable to Google. (Anyone who wanted to spam the index would probably get a lot more "granular" by using hundreds of domain names. That could easily trigger a spam detector, especially if the hundreds of domains were largely identical in terms of content.)
[edited by: europeforvisitors at 5:23 am (utc) on Sep. 9, 2002]
I too feel this is a problem. Google has through their algo created a situation where something in the past that no search engine considered a problem, Google does. The simple tendency toward self-promotion makes crosslinking sites natural. Webmasters want to encourage people to go the their other sites.
The simple tendency toward self-promotion makes crosslinking sites natural. Webmasters want to encourage people to go the their other sites.
Remember, Google's target audience is the user, not the Webmaster. A Webmaster may think it natural to have 50 sites on herbal remedies with links between them, but users may disagree--especially if they're searching for information on "St. John's Wort" and the first few pages of Google results consist of links to the same e-commerce site under 50 different names.
Though, I do see sites like this doing well in Google, so, maybe there is some paranoia here.
People are now afraid (and maybe being penalized) for doing things they'd do naturally. savvy1
Sorry savvy1 but that really makes me smile because the issue with cross and heavy interlinking of sites is not because they are doing what “they'd do naturally” but because they are not acting in a natural manner. It makes no sense to link every page to every page of even one site let alone for two or more sites.
I start by linking a site together rather lightly at first and may increase the cross (within a site) linking and then the inter (across domains) linking with each update, sort of pushing the envelope if I feel assured or I see a need.
my site's structure is dictated by content and reader needs, not by SEO considerations – europeforvisitors
That’s a very good tip to pass on europeforvisitors. That’s where good web development begins. I do consider the SEO for a site though, right up front. To be successful you really want to consider all the options and weigh the benefits to the risks.
I've always thought of subdomains of a site as, well, part of that site. Not separate sites.
Though, I do see sites like this doing well in Google, so, maybe there is some paranoia here - savvy1
It strikes me that Google made that PR0 penalty so extreme because something about crosslinking scares the you-know-what out of them. ;)
google guy's opinion on a similar case:
[webmasterworld.com...]Muesli,
thats not an entirely identical situation.
Your site's structure is a structure of subdomains.
"nickname.domain.com" as you worded it in that thread.
Jane_Doe's is interlinking between seperate sites, as far as I understood.My guess is that Google treats the links between subdomains as links within one site. The subdomain naming structure facilitates that as well. Therefore any interlinking at whatever level should do no harm.
My guess is that in the near future Google will discount or even-out any crosslinking benefits between separate sites interlinking heavily.
[webmasterworld.com...]
If not, it will disturb future SERP's more and more in my opinion.The question is when that will happen.
At the moment everyone is stabbing in the dark on how far interlinking can go, with the safe bet being to have 50% or so of incoming external links per site.In a way, the PR0 penalty Google imposed in January was a sign of weakness in their algo ;). A more sophisticated algo (if possible) would have just ignored any of the possible interlinking beneficial (Page)ranking effects.
I know a few links to one site and a few links back should be fine because I do that now with other webmasters who have similar topic sites. From looking at other people's sites on the web, my sense is that even heavy cross linking is okay, *if* you have a lot of other external links to your sites, too, especially links from ODP or other authoritive links. However, without any clear guidelines on the subject, extensive crosslinking seems to be a high risk - high reward type of strategy.
Thanks for everyones' input on this issue.
My guess is that Google treats the links between subdomains as links within one site. The subdomain naming structure facilitates that as well. Therefore any interlinking at whatever level should do no harm.
my guess is (in my particular case, see the other thread) that googleguy had a look at my site and saw that there are 5 outgoing links (REALLY outgoing links) on almost every page. this makes my site (from a technical perspective) stand out from spam despite its heavy interlinking.
i really doubt that google differentiates between "sites" when calculating PR, regardless if on www.mysite.com, something.mysite.com or www.somewhereelse.com. there are million cases in the world where thousands of site are on one domain and there are again million cases with one site being spread over various domains. to name a few: xyz.de.vu, xyz.cjb.net, www.geocities/abc/xyz, tripod, homestead, angelfire, talkcity, etc.
IMHO google doesn't care what a site is and what isn't. my own frontpage gets pretty much of its PR (PR7) from inside the site. thousands of user-pages on my site are filled up with PR by links from my users' personal homepages. this PR is handed over to my frontpage. google - i'm pretty sure about that - doesn't care if the links come from outside or inside my site.
