Cross links in the footer appear to be OK

[surfgatinho]

I've been watching a competitor of mine who are doing well for a good range of competitive phrases.

At the bottom of each page they have around 60 links to other parts of their regional sites.

I have shied away from this practice as I thought it would be regarded as spammy.

However, looking at how quickly their new sites are getting first page results for competitive phrases I'd be inclined to think otherwise.

The entire network is probably around 10 sites and it would appear most of the PR is generated by cross linking as I can't find much evidence of external links.

So, what's the current thinking on cross links in the footer?

[tedster]

My current feeling is that footer links between common-owner sites are just damped WAY down in their power - at least as long as they have usefulness for the visitor and are not placed there simply for ranking purposes.

[surfgatinho]

The examples I'm looking at involve sites that are about 2 months old featuring well in the SERPs for some competetive keywords.
The whole network appears to be driven by cross linking, mainly from the footer and not external links

[HuskyPup]

The entire network is probably around 10 sites

Does each site have unique content?

[surfgatinho]

Does each site have unique content?

yes, up to a point.
They are very formulaic, template driven sites with a bit of keyword rich write up here and there - not exactly link bait quality though

[edited by: tedster at 2:11 am (utc) on June 14, 2009]

[Whitey]

around 60 links to other parts of their regional sites

That many links in the footer would be a concern. Surely they were not on the same page Y/N ?

We run a network of 12 regional sites with different content and even then we are nervous enough about interlinking. Those sites have 12 links per page interlinking , but we put nofollows on to reduce the risk of being penalised.

I've run the question of interlinking past many senior SEO / webmasters and monitored several Googler's [ MC , Adam L & John Mu ] inputs over recent years. The remarks conflict. My conclusion is there's nothing to feel 100% secure about with this practice. It would please me no end to be referred to the definitive guarantee and guideline of interlinking sites.

[idolw]

I would feel OK with linking to home pages and using domain names as anchor text in links - I guess this approach would not even require nofollow tag.
However, interlinking between sub pages with keyword rich anchors may be quite risky as the entire network is visible.
On the other hand, this is on-page factor. So when a penalty/filter comes, you could easily remove the footer links and submit a recon request.
Google say they will review it quickly and if spammy stuff is taken away they would remove penalty instantly.

[Whitey]

Google say they will review it quickly and if spammy stuff is taken away they would remove penalty instantly.

Do you have source reference on this ?

[surfgatinho]

64 links in the footer of EVERY page. Only use no follow for the about us / contact type stuff. All links have keyword stuffed title tags.
80 internal links. Same IP addresses too.

These sites are outranking quality sites I have run for several years despite the fact they are less than 6 months old.

I'm going to put some heavy cross linking on a network of less important sites I run and see if that has any effect