Two sites - best way to use one to promote the other?

[apauto]

I have a website that sells widgets and a forum on a different domain all about widgets.

on the forum I want to put links in the footer to each categry of the store and on the store I want to put links in the footer to the different sections of the forum

do I need to worry about google not liking this for any reason?

I was going to just add another store to the forum but think maybe this way is best

thanks in advance for your advice

[tedster]

Reasonable interlinking between co-owned sites you own that serve different purposes on the same topics are usually OK. Google just notes that the links are "incestuous" and damps down the link power.

However, link to every category from every page might be just a bit over the top. I can't say for sure, because I've never banged into a penalty but going from what others have reported - especially if the links are added after the sites are already established, there might be a ranking problem if you go meyond a reasonable moderation.

I'd say it probably depends on how strong your backlink profile is - the backlinks that you DON'T control.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

But how do they know that you co-own them? Would placing them on different hosting space not get round the problem?

[JS_Harris]

There is no foolproof way of preventing search engines from connecting multiple sites to an owner, there are simply too many ways a link can be made.

There is also no valid reason for trying to do so anyway in my opinion. I prefer using a sitewide link between two sites and using nofollow on all but the index page because it has the least impact on articles.

I suspect a sitewide link will drain rank from all pages but not credit all links as worthy enough to result in a boost but Pagerank bleed is another beast altogether.

[skweb]

If you are trying to link so that your users can enjoy the other website then you should put the link in a prominent place and not in the footer. If you want to manipulate rankings, then don't blame Google for punishing you for overlinking.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

If you want to manipulate rankings...

Isn't that what we all do? ;)

[apauto]

If you are trying to link so that your users can enjoy the other website then you should put the link in a prominent place and not in the footer. If you want to manipulate rankings, then don't blame Google for punishing you for overlinking.

Yeah, I want the users on the forum to see the links, but I don't want it to take away from the forum, which is why I wanted to do it in the footer.

I think I can throw this URL up here: [autoblog.com...] (An AOL site)

If you look on the bottom, they cross link to all of their other properties. Does it not matter in this case ,since their PR is so high?

[Jack_Hughes]

High authority sites get away with a lot more than sites with less authority. If you have no authority you don't get away with anything.