Inter-Site Linking

[malcolmcroucher]

Hi ,

Im gonna use the term intra site linking for internal links.
For links from a group of website im gonna use inter-site linking.

For example :

www.#*$!
www.bluewidget.com
www.yellowwidget.com
www.greenwidget.com

All these sites are owned by one company.

All these sites are linked to each other providing a nice network of backlinks.

Could this be a strategy to avoid massive backlink hunting .

The case study I am looking at seems to have a page rank of 4 , but from from my research the seem to have only have a handful of links that is not from their inter-site linking.

Now the main problem with this strategy in my opinion is
1.the need for multiple domains
2.The domains would most probably be specific in some item eg red widget so you would be limited to sell only red widgets.

The advantages of this strategy :
1. You could specialise in multiple niche areas such as widgets

Basically what I am asking for is anyone specific opinions on this strategy or maybe I have overlooked something ?

Regards

Malcolm

[wheel]

What you're describing is a network of sites, or a linkfarm. The search engines are well aware of this practice and don't like it much.

It works well until you get caught. You'll need to decide what signals about your network are likely to get you caught, vs. what just looks like a natural interlinking of sites owned by one entity.

If you're going to do this, you should at least diversify the backlinks of the feeder sites. You still have to do backlinks for those sites.

[Quadrille]

Link exchange schemes have been deprecated by the search engines for years, and Google has operated a 'seek and destroy' policy successfully for a couple of years.

The situation you describe could be regarded as a 'special case' in that all the sites are related, and do not involve outsiders, so I don't think google would be unduly concerned ... on the other hand, I don't think it would add much, if any, SEO value, except helping new pages to get indexed.

You can't have it both ways :)

What you are suggesting, in general, would be harmless to Google, and possibly advantageous to your visitors. but there are risks:

1. If you do this AND have a wider link exchange policy, even with related, quality sites, then I suspect you are significantly increasing the chances of being seen as a link exchange scheme, rather than a purely local affair.

2. If your sites share content in any significant way, you are bringing this to Google's attention.

3. While your policy may be advantageous to visitors, that would depend how it is done - it could be harmful or at least confusing, if visitors go to one site, then find themselves at another. Not good for building trust.

Personally, I interlink my sites when they are new, in order to 'kick start' them; but I then remove most or all of such links over a few months. I don't think this is 'bad' - I'd equally use one bricks'n'mortar business to promote another, I'd be silly not to!

[edited by: Quadrille at 1:09 pm (utc) on July 31, 2008]

[CainIV]

Unfortunately, as much as current standards look at this practice as 'antiquated', search engines have a very tough time depreciating it - especially when each one master site links to one child site, and another links to the child site (and vice versa), and all are hosted on different C class servers.

As much as we would love to believe that Google can sniff this out, it is pretty apparent at this time that it cannot always.

[nicknick]

it could be harmful or at least confusing, if visitors go to one site, then find themselves at another. Not good for building trust.

Unless of course you offer a brand of domain like
#*$!
bluewidget.com
greenwidget.com

or alternatively area related domains such as

widget.co.uk
widget.de
widget.com

That could help with interlinking