Optimal Cross Site Link Structure

Is it better to have many specific links accross sites ore one topic link?

[schulz]

I have a few different sites with similiar aims that share content.

Say Red.Widgets.com (RW), Blue.Widgets.com (BW), Yellow.Widgets.com (YW). Each site has a section that is articles. Each article lives on either RW, BW, or YW but are linked to from the sites it doesn't live on.

My question is say I'm on Blue Widgets and I'm linking to articles from Yellow Widgets would it be better to:

link: Yellow Widget Articles

or:
Yellow Widget Articles:
link: Article 1
link: Article 2
link: Article 3

My take is that the second approach would be better because of the links to individual articles with keywords in the link (link titles would be article titles) but I'm afraid that because all the sites are in widgets.com and the link text will be identical there will be some duplication penalty. The goal is to get the articles as highly ranked as possible.

I'd appreciate any input.

[Rollo]

I'd roll them all into one site if the content is related. Why risk dupe content and crosslinking penalties?

[schulz]

Because they are related but not the same. Imagine a network of baseball sites (fictional example) cardinals.myimaginarybaseballsite.com and redsox.myimaginarybaseballsite.com.

Can anybody point me to some info on link duplication penaltys?

[Frequent]

Easy, myimaginarybaseballsite.com/cardinals/...myimaginarybaseballsite.com/twins/

Freq---

[Rollo]

...plus one large site offers economies of scale when building links, advertising, etc. as well as better branding possibilites vis a vis numerous smaller sites. Imagine if amazon.com decided to build a differnt sites for each product line...

[idolw]

and one site looks less spammy than a network :)

[tigger]

but what about putting all you eggs into one basket spreading the risk over more sites could also be a wise move

[Rollo]

"Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket." - Andrew Carnegie

[nippi]

do seperate sites. You will be able to get more links. The same site, might link to all 10 of your sites, with different anchor text.

Host on different servers.

Ensure there is NO duplciate content by rewriting text a little on each site.

Interlinking is fine, just make it real

[petehall]

"Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket." - Andrew Carnegie

I like it!
------

I have never ever seen sites removed or penalised for cross linking.

That doesn't mean I think it's a good practise...

[glengara]

*I have never ever seen sites removed or penalised for cross linking.*

It's one of those "tricky"areas, sites that have a linkage based penalty invariably have cross-linking as part of the mix, but on its own, and in moderation, I'd probably agree with Pete.

[petehall]

The scary thing is I am aware of a network of sites that cross link in the footer of each page to each site, around seven sites in total.

There has never been a penalty for five, nearly six years now.

Backlinks show hundreds and hundreds of links all from the same network!

[tigger]

its frustrating when you see that! one of sites within my market have linked up 4 (mirror) sites with 1000's of links and they are ranking well for a very competitive term - it makes you wonder doesn't it

[annej]

I have two sites on the same topic I've thought about putting combining them to the larger site but I like having the second site so when one is down the other will be up. My regulars know both sites. Also one might be found on one search while the other on a different search. There are no duplicate pages.

I do have both linked to each other on the homepages calling them sister sites. Beyond that I do the cross linking between related articles. In other words deep linking.

I'll admit I'm a little uneasy about this but I think the linking is variable enough to pass.

[schulz]

How would you find out if there had been a cross linking penalty?

[glengara]

*How would you find out if there had been a cross linking penalty?*

Hard to do as there isn't a specific one, usually there's a ban/0PR, but that's from where the overall linkage pattern is deemed a "links scheme, IMO.