How does Google see interconnected sites? Will they penalize?

[flopro]

The company I work for are considering becoming affiliated with another company in the same sector, principally to drive extra traffic to our site. However in recent weeks we have noticed that the other site has been dropping in the search rankings for our main keyword. They have gone from being firmly established on page 1 to page 4 and page 5.

For the same keyword our site is on page 2, my question is, will becoming affiliated with a site that has recently taken a hit in the SERPs have a negative effect on our ranking? Will Google be able to see a relationship between the 2 companies and penalise us by association?

[goodroi]

In the SEO world, affiliate sites are websites that promote a product or service online in exchange for a sales commission or other paid compensation.

What you describe is more like a cross-promotion opportunity. For example a widget store website exchanges linked ads with a widget repair website so they both display banner ads to promote the other website. This is totally normal and acceptable. Exchanging links and cross promoting between relevant websites is a smart idea.

It sounds like they were ranking around #5 and are now ranking around #40. A website losing a few places in the rankings is not usually a sign of a penalty. More likely their SEO ranking power has simply diminished or the competition has increased their SEO ranking power. Maybe they removed some keyword terms or another site deleted a link their website. This is more often just a natural fluctuation in rankings.

Exchanging links between the two sites could boost the ranking power for both sites. You need to use your negotiation skills to figure out the best deal for your business.

[JS_Harris]

Rule of thumb: Google won't penalize if the links make sense and/or aren't overdone.