Thread: Interlinking Websites?

Okay, here's a little situation. My client has a two different web server. One is a non-dedicated server, and the other is a VPS on Plesk Parallels.

The 1st server (which is the WHM cPanel) has over hundred different sites hosted on it, and then the 2nd server (which is the Plesk) is a very new one, and has about 20 sites hosted on it.

The client wants to link the sites according to their corresponding niche. If you are on that situation,

What do you think will be the best thing to do to link all the sites according to their respective niche?
Do you think it will affect the Optimization of each websites?

Thoughts? :fine:

It will be time consuming but worth it as long as they have unique ip addresses and are linked only to niche related content. I personally use to do this all the time so I could better rankings and gain higher pr's.

You can interlink the sites. Even if the sites are on the same IP. Google won't penalize small scale interlinking. Many mom & pop sites interlink in a limited way and the big corporations interlink with their family of sites.

As long as you don't go overboard and the interlinking doesn't rise to the level of a link scheme you should be o.k.

1) Link to a hub rather than reciprocal links.
2) Don't use site wide links
3) Do't interlink more than 5 or 6 sites
4) Keep linking confined to related sites

I would agree that small scale interlinking doesn't matter that much. But large scale interlinking may trigger a review of all the sites. To do this properly, you would need.

1. Use lots of different Class C ips
2. Scramable or protect your WHOIS information
3. Remove Adsense codes from all the sites if you use a common adsense account.
4. Look at each sites carefully and see whether Google can identify any common footprints.

Basically, you will have to remove all possible evidence that a single owner is involved in all these sites.

Originally Posted by zxpro168

I would agree that small scale interlinking doesn't matter that much. But large scale interlinking may trigger a review of all the sites. To do this properly, you would need.

1. Use lots of different Class C ips
2. Scramable or protect your WHOIS information
3. Remove Adsense codes from all the sites if you use a common adsense account.
4. Look at each sites carefully and see whether Google can identify any common footprints.

Basically, you will have to remove all possible evidence that a single owner is involved in all these sites.

Site owners like to open their own sites. I would wonder if there could be a pattern of the same group of sites opened from the same ips. Add to that the google toolbar and webmaster tools.

So you guys mean that I cannot link the sites that I am handling which is being hosted on same server, same whois information and with the same adsense account?

For this reason, I never use webmastertools or sitemaps. I am not sure whether Google would go as far as to use toolbar data

Here is an interesting article on why Google may ban a site

http://www.searchenginepromotionhelp...ogle-ban-2.php


"Mini-nets
This strategy involves interlinking multiple domains within a single ownership as a means to artificially inflate the PageRank of each interlinked page. Although this can be an effective way to boost search engine ranking, it also requires tremendous focus to make it work and can be very tricky to implement. If you link too aggressively between your sites or if you create an isolated node – an interconnected circle of sites devoid of incoming links from outside sources – Google is likely to eventually take notice and all of your sites could be penalized or banned. "

I think the conclusion must be that it is potentially very difficult and dangerous to implement a good inter-linking strategy. There are specialized "SEO hosting" services available that offers up 50 to 100 different Class C i.p addresses.

I am not sure to what extent Google uses WHOIS data but they are an accredited domain registrar so they do have rapid access to WHOIS data. Google's adsense team always deny that they pass information to the search engine team but I never trusted them on this.

Originally Posted by zeruel

So you guys mean that I cannot link the sites that I am handling which is being hosted on same server, same whois information and with the same adsense account?

Linking to a hub, or interlinking 5 or 6 sites is o.k. However even two sites interlinking that have thousands of pages can be penalized.

Bogart added 2 Minutes and 15 Seconds later...

Originally Posted by zxpro168

"Mini-nets
This strategy involves interlinking multiple domains within a single ownership as a means to artificially inflate the PageRank of each interlinked page. Although this can be an effective way to boost search engine ranking, it also requires tremendous focus to make it work and can be very tricky to implement. If you link too aggressively between your sites or if you create an isolated node – an interconnected circle of sites devoid of incoming links from outside sources – Google is likely to eventually take notice and all of your sites could be penalized or banned. "

Great info :happy-f:

Don't link too aggressively between your sites or create an isolated node

Thanks for the great information there zxpro168 and Bogart!

zeruel added 628 Minutes and 56 Seconds later...

Okay, here's another situation, what if I link all the sites, let's say all the travel sites to one single domain(diff IP with the travel sites)

(Note that the travel sites are on the same IP)

Will it still be penalized? I saw this site manilahosting.net, inter-linking their websites at linkexchangeseo.com with the same IP. And I am surprised that they're not being penalized.

Originally Posted by zeruel

Thanks for the great information there zxpro168 and Bogart!

zeruel added 628 Minutes and 56 Seconds later...

Okay, here's another situation, what if I link all the sites, let's say all the travel sites to one single domain(diff IP with the travel sites)

(Note that the travel sites are on the same IP)

Will it still be penalized? I saw this site manilahosting.net, inter-linking their websites at linkexchangeseo.com with the same IP. And I am surprised that they're not being penalized.

The linkexchangeseo.com is a 3-way link exchange scheme that Google may crack down on in the future. Kind of like the way Google cracked down on reciprocal linking with the Big Daddy update back in Sep/Oct 2005. That was a big one. More recently Google has slapped directories and blogs.

I would use the time and effort to build a balanced link profile. You will be better off in the long run.

Whenever I want to interlink between the websites I own I only do so in an effort to increase traffic flow and NOT to manipulate SERPS or PR. For that reason I go ahead and add the rel="me" tag. Google and other SEs are accustomed to seeing this tag in blogs and it indicates that you are not trying to play the system. Also, I only interlink when I think it is absolutely relevant and would be of interest to the visitor.

Originally Posted by KentuckySlone

Whenever I want to interlink between the websites I own I only do so in an effort to increase traffic flow and NOT to manipulate SERPS or PR. For that reason I go ahead and add the rel="me" tag. Google and other SEs are accustomed to seeing this tag in blogs and it indicates that you are not trying to play the system. Also, I only interlink when I think it is absolutely relevant and would be of interest to the visitor.

I never heard of the rel-me tag before so I had to do some research.

Rel="me" is XFN (XHTML Friends Network) that represents relationships using hyperlinks. The rel-me tag creates a common identity for the different pages.

Another tag is rel=”acquaintance”. But I believe the tag applies more to social networks.

The evidence so far is that Google will not penalize sites receiving the links, but may penalize sites who are giving them. It may work if you just use a small number of sites, but it would probably not be as effective if they were on different Class C's.

Google has been changing a lot recently. It seems to have greatly improved its detection of paid links. I think it would be risky to assume anything about Google.

Originally Posted by Bogart

I never heard of the rel-me tag before so I had to do some research.

Rel="me" is XFN (XHTML Friends Network) that represents relationships using hyperlinks. The rel-me tag creates a common identity for the different pages.

Another tag is rel=”acquaintance”. But I believe the tag applies more to social networks.

rel="me" is one of the default link tags in Wordpress. There is also acquaintance, friend, contact and quite a few others.

Thanks for that info Sir. Do you guys had any experience about this rel="me" tag?

Originally Posted by zeruel

Thanks for that info Sir. Do you guys had any experience about this rel="me" tag?

I'm wondering if Google would treat the link as an "internal link" or "nofollow"?

I really dont know. The reason I go ahead and use it is because I want to link out to a certain page because it is relevant BUT I dont want to be penalized by the almighty G and have them "thinking" I am trying to play their system. Yeah, I know. This is sort of bowing down to their control in a way, but man I get so much traffic from them that I think it is worth it.

My opinion is that they do not treat it quite the same as "nofollow" but not too far from it. Maybe they do treat it similarly to an internal link.

I did some searching and it is odd that there isnt a lot more info out there about this. WP has had those tags included in the blogroll links for quite some time.

Originally Posted by KentuckySlone

I really dont know. The reason I go ahead and use it is because I want to link out to a certain page because it is relevant BUT I dont want to be penalized by the almighty G and have them "thinking" I am trying to play their system. Yeah, I know. This is sort of bowing down to their control in a way, but man I get so much traffic from them that I think it is worth it.

My opinion is that they do not treat it quite the same as "nofollow" but not too far from it. Maybe they do treat it similarly to an internal link.

I did some searching and it is odd that there isnt a lot more info out there about this. WP has had those tags included in the blogroll links for quite some time.

I have three sites that I'm going to try rel-me with. The main site doesn't interlink. However, the other two sites do interlink. The two sites are a vertical and blog. The vertical only has one obl to the main site. I think that this would pass under the radar with G.

But, I'm interested to see if G will group these sites are related.

I had a problem in the past where I had a weak site in the same niche and the weak site took the ranking of the main site. There wasn't any interlinking but the sites were on the same server.

I realize that it will take some time to get some results in your experiment but I would be very interested to hear what you find out.

I'd be definitely interested with the results of your trial. And yes, it will surely take some time...

Thanks a lot!

I'll hit back

I'm really wondering if this could help the three sites. Thinking hilltop.

Hope to get your feedback soon...

I am wondering about the results...

Originally Posted by KentuckySlone

I realize that it will take some time to get some results in your experiment but I would be very interested to hear what you find out.

It appears that the rel-me had a positive effect. I haven't done any link building in a couple of months. However, the three sites -- main site, vertical and blog -- are approx 10% stronger.