Hundreds of links from similar site

Avoiding penalty with the ref="nofollow"

[Frank_Rizzo]

The first site I ever had was a free isp one from back in 98. Since then I've moved onto dedicated servers but have always kept the free one.

It is used as a links / doorway (in a good way not intended as spam) to drive some traffic to the main site.

e.g.

oldwidgetsite
-------------
Contains hundreds of pages on the species of widgets. Lists size, origin etc. Contains text on widget and then a link to the main site.

For more detailed info on the california bronto widget please visit (a href="http://mynewbigwidgetsite.com/?widget=california_bronto")newbigwidgetsite(/a)

I guess it looks bad from a SE point of view but it does send some traffic to the newbigwidget site each day.

So what about adding a ref="nofollow" to the href? Will this pacify the SE's or do they still clock up bad points for the hundreds of links to newbigwidgetsite?

[sugarrae]

Well I guess my first question is, is it "broken"? Are you actually seeing some negative effect?

[Frank_Rizzo]

I don't know if I am. How would I tell? I rank well enough in G. for keywords and it's always been that way.

But I'm wondering if I'd rank better in other SE's and if G. would lift the ranking for minor keywords if the old site was totally dropped or had the nofollow.

[vladid]

I'd say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Sitewide links are very common (especially in the blog era) and they work for many people.