Reciprocal Links between my own sites ?
-
Is is ok to have Reciprocal Links between sites you really own ?
We have a website that has been regionalized to 5 countries, using 5 different domains. The content is exclusive for the country but the keywords used might be similar.
We have all the domains under the same Analytics account and all of them share the same Adsense code.
Can I be penalized by Google for making reciprocal links between them ? Is something usefull for improving the SEO rank or I should avoid doing it ?
Thanks in advance
-
Well put Gianluca, I always appreciate your input.
-
Robert gave a great answer, but I may offer you an alternative.
It is true that all your sites linking one each other may seem a classic link wheel, but sometimes - and maybe it is your case - there are occasion when a business company runs more site for its different brands.
In that case the fact each site links to the others in not absolutely a spammy thing, but a brand consistence necessity.
But, in order to make clear you are not doing any suspicious link wheel, the best way is to create a good About Us page where you tell the nature of the site and that is part of a bigger project which see also the existance of other sites, which you briefly describe and link to (and maybe in a subsection with H2 heading: "Our international sites" or "Our international presence).
Doing that way you link your sites one each other, but editorially and just in a very topically defined page (the About Us).
So, you will also avoid to the links in places which are surely devaluated (i.e.: footer links).
-
That's a great answer from Robert.
Additionally, if the inter-site links would benefit your visitors, then by all means provide them, otherwise, really not much benefit to be gained on the SEO front as Robert correctly mentions.
You mention that the various websites have their own Content. Use this unique content to attract links by ensuring that it adds value to the visitors, is topical, informative, useful. Distribute it well and socially share it amongst relevant networks, focus on those such activities for your links.
Regards, Simon
-
The fact you have them under the same analytics account really says it all; while Google may not penalize it per say, they are likely to devalue the links. Frankly, we already know that reciprocal links don't work or one off schemes around them. Having sites that are on the same IP address or C block will also devalue the link. So, what to do?
An example for us is our main site. We build a lot of sites for others and for at least a year and a half now we no longer have those sites link back to us. In our new site, there are no links coming back from clients. There just doesn't seem to be a point in it. With your sites I think you would be better served to get your links the old fashion way.
Best,
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Footer pages on international sites
Hi guys, i have a question about footer indexed pages like about us, frequently questions, press or ads with us, among others. I'd like to put the same page in our website of .com.mx but i don't know how because i think it will be duplicate content. should i create new content for these pages? Thanks, J
International SEO | | pompero990 -
If domain mapping subfolders to TLD's is it perceived as a fully separate entity/site therafter ?
Hi I take it once you have domain mapped a country specific subfolder to a country specific TLD (for better local region targeting reasons) Google perceives it as a completely separate entity and it no longer shares any of the parent sites domain benefits (such as domain authority etc) so from that point on requires its own dedicated link building etc ? All Best Dan
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Multilingual site - Best choice?
Quick question for a site that has the same content but in a different language (not machine translated) on seperate pages.
International SEO | | Crunchii
Say I have:www.mydomain.com (which is in English)
www.mydomain.com/ES (which is in Spanish)
www.mydomain.com/NL (which is in Dutch) I don't want to limit the ie. Spanish to only Spain so geotargeting isn't necessary What is the best/correct setup for the pages?0 -
My site is not showing on google.com ?
My website is not showing at all on google.com searches under search terms. It is showing if i search for my domain (xyz.com) but not by keywords. Searching by keywords and search terms shows my website on yahoo , bing and non US oogle as google.co.uk or google.com.pk on first page. Would appreciate any help in trying to understand why this is happening? The website is medicare.md. if you search for term "medicare doctors PG county maryland" it is #1 in bing and yahoo but not even showing on google.com first TEN pages, although not banned. Interestingly if you do that search on google.co.pk it is #4. Quite Puzzuling !! Would appreciate any help or advice . Sherif Hassan
International SEO | | sherohass0 -
Impact of Japanese .jp site duplicate content?
Our main website is at http://www.traxnyc.com and we just launched a Japanese version of the site at http://www.traxnyc.jp domain. However all the images used on the .jp site are linked from the .com site. Would this hurt me in Google at all for hotlinking images? Also there is quite a bit of duplicate content on the .jp site at the moment: only a few things have been translated to Japanese and for the most part the layouts and words are exactly the same (in English). Would this hurt my Google rankings in the US at all? Thanks for all your help.
International SEO | | DiamondJewelryEmpire0 -
Is .in domain affecting international traffic inflow to my site?
My holiday website http://seekandhide.in/ was completed and went live in Feb 2012. Last month I got 83% traffic from India and 3-5% each from USA and UK. The rest is a mixed bag from other countries. This is largely the trend since the last 3-4 months. I want to attract more organic traffic from UK and rest of Europe. My SEO consultant says that with a .in domain that will be difficult. My website currently features unique holiday properties in India that typically attract European tourists so I don't think it is a product issue. But both website visits and sales enquiries remain primarily Indian even though total number of visitors have increased gradually over the last 6 months.. My queries are 1. Is it only the .in domain that's affecting inflow of international traffic? 2. Is there anything that I can do to offset it? 3. I own seekandhide.co.uk too. Is there something I can do with that site without building a whole different website there? If I shift completely to .co.uk, I will have the same issue of being geographically limited and end up losing Indian traffic. 4. Is there something else that is not ok on the site that I am missing? 5. Advice that I get from a lot of consultants is to buy seekandhideindia.com but I plan to add international properties in a couple of years so that name would limit my appeal. Thanks in advance! Sudha
International SEO | | Sudha_Mathew0 -
Different Home Sites for different Countries but same Language
We'r starting a new webshop soon and and one of our programmers came up with the following: Different Home Sites (Index Pages) for Austria and Germany. The Language is both times German but some words are different than others. The customer would like to have that. So we would have: domain.com (No Austrian or German IP Address) domain.com/at/ (User with Austrian IP Adress) domain.com/de/ (User with German IP Address) Is this SEO wise a disadvantage? How to set up the canonicals? DE & AT Page with the Canonical on the main Domain? Any advice? Thank you
International SEO | | leitpix0 -
Do ".edu." links with appended ccTLD have similar value to .edu links with no ccTLD?
Just wondering if there is any evidence or data to suggest that, all things being equal, a link from a college or university with a ccTLD has more value than another ccTLD link. I have some anecdotal evidence that several URLs with the *.edu.ph ccTLD have domain authorities over 55. My expectation is that because only a TLD is ever truly a TLD: ucla_.edu_ is a true .edu link, but for a URL such as "feu.edu.ph" the Top-level domain is the ccTLD, i.e. .ph for the Philippines, and the .edu portion of the root domain will be irrelevant to the link's value. But I'm hoping I'm wrong... 🙂
International SEO | | BrianCrouch0