Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Define crosslinking or cross linking
On [searchengineworld.com...] Brett has defined cross linking as
Cross linking is linking across content within the same site.
In that case much of the discussion we’ve had on the subject is really off topic because for many they consider cross linking (crosslinking – I prefer) to include links between related or even unrelated domains but all under the same ownership (whether that ownership is hidden or not).
I guess my question here than is – How do we define crosslinking?
We’ve defined Reciprocal Linkage [searchengineworld.com...] as
A link exchange between two sites.
In that case then, even if the sites are within the same ownership, exchanging links between the separate domains is actually Reciprocal Linkage and not crosslinking.
Another discussion on this topic was started by creep at [webmasterworld.com...] and although agerhart was kind enough to respond, I think it merits more discussion.
How is it detected?
[webmasterworld.com...] - I think this was a good start but I see we have more to go and Robert Charlton brought up a follow up to Brett’s suggestion for “a clear pixel graphic to the link page”, hasn’t been discussed fully yet. This discussion brings up web mapping I think and that’s an interesting topic for a continued crosslinking or Reciprocal Linkage discussion. Anyone with input could jump in there.
I was trying to find more discussions we’ve had on mapping the web and the technology of visually seeing the connections between sites. If anyone can find reference to these could you post and let me know.
What’s the difference between this crosslinking between sites and a hub?
I of course believe this question merits it’s own discussion so I’m working on that for a future post. It would help to get your input and ideas about this though or references to discussions you’ve found helpful.
Crosslinking and c-blocks
Googleguy says no problem, others still question whether there’s a problem, some plan for it becoming a problem in the future. There have been a few discussions about this. We could probably talk about it further here - [webmasterworld.com...]
Here was another one that had more detail on class-c - [webmasterworld.com...]
If you think it’s a problem or could be a problem or you’re protecting yourself from the possibilities, let’s talk about it.
Themes and crosslinking
This was a great discussion started by Gethan - [webmasterworld.com...] , which I couldn’t help but jump into. The kicker with this one is I believe this information is really valuable and useful to folks who are concerned with crosslinking, particularly as it relates within a single site.
Crosslinking and sub-domains (canonicals)
We’ve talked about it. It came up here - [webmasterworld.com...]
Google’s crosslinking filter
Here was a great discussion - [webmasterworld.com...]
Or this one - [webmasterworld.com...] about crosslinking and ethics.
Laying out your linking plan
We really have talked a lot about this, particularly with regards to themes so any of the discussion on theme will naturally bring up how to link your site together. I have found these discussions particularly helpful.
[webmasterworld.com...] - Linking the theme site
We should talk about the navigational structure of the site and the first discussion I’ve listed under penalties goes into that a bit but I think we could use more discussion on it.
Questions of Penalties
[webmasterworld.com...] - Goes into questions again about linking a site together, going into what tools we use for the links – text, images. I think we should also consider the navigation structure and include java or flash and how this may or may not affect potential penalties.
This is a long post and a beginning. I’ll be adding more topics for discussion with references to other discussions. Please feel free to add topics you’d like to see discussed, questions you might have on the topic and of course answers or input. For us to even begin to define the direction we see for this I think we need to define the topic. I hope this post will begin that process.
(edited by: paynt at 3:15 pm (utc) on June 1, 2002)
Crosslinking different language version web sites [webmasterworld.com]
Multiple Copies of Site / Multiple Languages [webmasterworld.com]
Hi startup -
Crosslinking to me means, the footer or navbar link on ever page, or most pages, to another site. This is coupled with the other site or sites doing the same thing.
I agree that in most cases this is what folks are doing, so we are thinking of crosslinking beyond a single site when we talk about it. For those that aren’t sure it seems important to me that we have a clear understanding of the terms. If cross linking is within a domain and reciprocal linking between domains then what we see as the current situation and concerns about crosslinking is actual unique and blends the two. Or does it? If we remove these mirrored navigation and footers between sites don’t we then reduce the possibility of a problem? How do we do this and still retain the sense of consistency and flow between sites?
I mean we’ve found in many cases that it pays to create different domains to enhance the optimization efforts. We don’t want the visitors to get confused either when they move from one to the other so consistency is important. How then do we do this?
Greate post Paynt
/Ove
Exactly! We have our site translated in several languages and we decided to have different TLD dominions (some locals and some .com).
At the moment we are not crosslinking the sites because we are worried about the possibility to be banned from Google.
I hope Googleguy will post here.
In my search for interlinking I found the following discussions, which will hopefully pool with some of the above information.
Class-C Interlinking
[webmasterworld.com...] Great discussion where amongst all the helpful bits of advice and information there was a running dialogue to attract Googleguy in for an answer, which did come in the form of…
NeoN, we don't penalize for links in the same class C IP subnet. I wouldn't worry about this. As someone else said, the most we do with dodgy links is just drop them--they don't become actively harmful. – Googleguy - Dec. 7, 2001
Hiding Links
[webmasterworld.com...] - This was a good discussion started by wasmith. In it he brings up the idea of linking to spam or bad neighborhoods. Worth a second read for those pulling together the whole linking process right now, especially with regards to concerns and potential problems or penalties.
Canonicals/sub-domains and Interlinking
[webmasterworld.com...] Check out this discussion started by AlbinoRhyno and Vishal then comes in with some terrific feedback. Marcia comes in with a great warning about interlinking, well worth another read. Of course you’ll find I had to put more than my 2 cents in on that one.
Question on Interlinking
[webmasterworld.com...] Doesn’t look like kris got a final answer. Maybe we can help out there or even this pulling together of threads will help. If you’re around kris – can you weigh in?
More on International Linking
stever’s question is about Local domain development? [webmasterworld.com...]
Internal Linkage & Spider Bread Crumbs
franklin dematto asks a good question about internal linking and spiders. It looks as if he still had a question unanswered so if someone would like to take a look. Tedster had a great post and worth the read. [webmasterworld.com...]
I hope you are all finding this helpful. Every now and then I believe we need to pull and pool our ideas and our questions together. It’s tough to keep up on it all. There’s more on interlinking that I’ll add later. I’m glad to see though that some of this topics have been revisited are being discussed. Please jump in where you can and answer questions. Lurkers and newbies as always, you know I love it when you jump in. ;)
[edited to add title - paynt]
(edited by: paynt at 2:04 pm (utc) on June 1, 2002)
Paynt, I agree with you, it should probably be "crosslinking," although "cross-linking" could also work.
"Cross linking" sounds like a tinkertoy-like connection of cross-shaped objects.
Zounds. I've been writing too much newsletter copy today. :) Gotta get my mind out of grammar.
I also found another link, which I thought you all might enjoy as it ties in to the rest of what I've tried to bring together here.
This was a discussion brought up by Brett on Identifying web communities [webmasterworld.com]. Really excellent information and worthy of a mention again in this discussion. I hope you will all review it and add input if you have anything else to contribute.
Linking Advice Needed [webmasterworld.com]
Interlinking question - will this get us banned [webmasterworld.com]
What ways are there to get yourself banned? [webmasterworld.com]
I almost missed this one which I think is great. We haven't discussed webrings in a while and for certain niches they can be great for traffic. It's like top sites, those too can work for certain niches. I think we need to continue to evaluate our strategies and the motivation behind our decisions. The line behind pleasing Google (or what we think Google wants), developing a well themed site, and simply getting good targeted traffic.
Is This New? - Web Ring Hits out the Wazooo... [webmasterworld.com]
I also liked this one:
Avoiding "duplicate content" of links pages. [webmasterworld.com]
They come so fast sometimes. Hopefully this will continue to feed our ongoing interest in the topic.
This whole topic, very recently, caused a complete change in how I was going to link several sites I own together.
While running a niche directory I was starting to branch off into more and more news and written content. So much that I decided to expand and move the news and content to a spinoff site on another domain and host because I would need PHP and mySQL. My intention had been to put clear links to the news site on the higher traffic directory site.
Well to make a long story short I did not put up links to the news site, for fear of getting PR0'ed by Google. No attempt to deceive anyone I'm very up front about owning both sites and the need to expand.
The whole Google PR0 thing has now completely changed the way I would have linked several different, but related sites together in a very radical and destructive way.
(If I owned two bricks and mortar businesses side by side in the same building and I wanted to put a door connecting them I could. But can we on the Web?)
My whole point with this example is to say how important this thread is. And how important it is that we find out what the clearly defined boundaries are on crosslinking, interlinking and reciprocal linking. Not just guesses.
And also perhaps what is ethical linking too.
As another example I've recently added my own web ring hosting and am adding topsites and I'm starting to get worried that this will earn me a PR0 too. I'm getting gray hairs just thinking about it!
Edit for typo.
(edited by: Brad at 4:39 pm (utc) on June 1, 2002)
A question of hubs [webmasterworld.com]
Researching the ideal SEO hub [webmasterworld.com] I didn't finish this one because of all the crosslinking issues and my concern that folks wouldn't get where I was coming from and would make mistakes which could hurt them. Hopefully when I get the time to come back to these concepts it will be a clear manner that folks will easily understand.
Designing and Maintaining a Hub [webmasterworld.com]
And I love discussions about hubs and authority so here's this.
Authority Hubs [webmasterworld.com] Started by rcjordan on June 28, 2000 and still great stuff two years later. This makes me realize how far we still have to go on this topic.
Page Rank -- it's not Hubs and Authorities [webmasterworld.com]
authority hubs, which SEs? [webmasterworld.com]
New Google Algo - Hubs/Authorities and HUH? [webmasterworld.com] Started by physics on July 6, 2001.
On the side now, it's amazing how when you start searching you find little gems. Heres an orphan post by Brett from Feb. 19, 2001.
Monday: Google And Links [webmasterworld.com] Info and background on how Google uses links to rank pages.
Here's a good discussion on inbound links.
Inbound Links Only [webmasterworld.com]
I try to approach links simply because of my lack of time to understand it in the kind of detail on this post. I manage about 20 sites (all with different c class):
- I have one link from my site to them all.
- I have a double link from them all to mine (ie two keyphrases as anchor-text with some non anchor-text in between).
- I link relevant sites to each other (only a few).
- I try to find relevant reciprocal links with other sites.
- I never repeat external links on every page of a site.
Now I'm nervous, am I treading on dangerous ground or not?
Does anyone have the time to write one summary of do's and don'ts from all this stuff? ;)
I know, as you'll read in some of the discussions, that is seems like a silly problem here but like anything we find work, some of us will push the envelope a bit further than others. I think this has contributed to linking penalties.
What I do to connect sites is to link through relevant content with text links. If I can’t legitimately link the content then I avoid the link. I know this is severe and rather a strict approach but I’ve not had problems with it and I have no fear I will.
Here are a few additional discussions that have come up.
Cross linking without duplicate content [webmasterworld.com] Anyone see a problem?
Safely Linking Two Sites
I would like to link my first website with my latest [webmasterworld.com]
zeus
