Same-server, Same-Market, Micro-Sites backlinks.. good or bad?
-
Hi there,
We are a real estate listings portal and we also create micro sites for real estate agents.
These micro-sites are hosted on our same server, similar in structure, different in design... different in content. They all link to us but not within each other.
They all link to us because they have to access our login system in order to manage their property listings on their own micro sites (which updates on our own website too). (Also as marketing for others to see that we have built their sites with our engine).
Would all these backlinks be considered to be coming from the same c-block? Thus, being sub-optimal for our SEO efforts? Should we worry about grouping them and giving them separate IP addresses?
Should we add nofollow tags to these links or are there any other things you would worry about?
Many thanks.
-
Hi Errol,
Yep, these links all come from the same c-block.
As Mary says, it's likely that Google is well aware that these sites are related. I disagree that that would automatically put you at high risk for a penalty, given that interlinking owned / managed websites is common practice, even amongst people who are not doing so for SEO purposes. Unless the network of sites appeared very manipulative, it is likely that the links would be discounted and no benefit passed between them rather than you being slapped with a bad penalty... however, nofollowing the links between each site and your hub site is the best practice when it is done to any extent / large scale, just in case this was viewed as manipulative. Since I do not know how many links / sites we're talking about here, I would certainly say that nofollowing these links would be the safe thing to do.
Even if you were being super-sneaky with the hosting of these sites, disguising Whois information, making changes to your template, etc., Google is incredibly good at figuring out which sites are related to each other. They've been good at this for a long time, so it's always best to assume that they'll know about professional networks like yours and follow best practice with linking.
Hope this helps!
Jane
-
Any second opinions would be appreciated..
-
I am sorry, could you clarify what you mean with the last sentence? Are you saying that by nofollowing those links I may see an SEO benefit so as I would potentially be "de-penalized"?
-
double post meant the same sorry
-
Even if you moved them to different IPs and c-blocks, it's highly likely that Google can tell they are related. Chances are good that Google sees this as some kind of link "scheme". If you no-follow the links, you may be spared the gelding that other link "schemes" have suffered.
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
-
No-Indexing on Ecommerce site
Hi Our site has a lot of similar/lower quality product pages which aren't a high priority - so these probably won't get looked at in detail to improve performance as we have over 200,000 products . Some of them do generate a small amount of revenue, but an article I read suggested no-indexing pages which are of little value to improve site performance & overall structure. I wanted to find out if anyone had done this and what results they saw? Will this actually improve rankings of our focus areas? It makes me a bit nervous to just block pages so any advice is appreciated 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Splitting One Site Into Two Sites Best Practices Needed
Okay, working with a large site that, for business reasons beyond organic search, wants to split an existing site in two. So, the old domain name stays and a new one is born with some of the content from the old site, along with some new content of its own. The general idea, for more than just search reasons, is that it makes both the old site and new sites more purely about their respective subject matter. The existing content on the old site that is becoming part of the new site will be 301'd to the new site's domain. So, the old site will have a lot of 301s and links to the new site. No links coming back from the new site to the old site anticipated at this time. Would like any and all insights into any potential pitfalls and best practices for this to come off as well as it can under the circumstances. For instance, should all those links from the old site to the new site be nofollowed, kind of like a non-editorial link to an affiliate or advertiser? Is there weirdness for Google in 301ing to a new domain from some, but not all, content of the old site. Would you individually submit requests to remove from index for the hundreds and hundreds of old site pages moving to the new site or just figure that the 301 will eventually take care of that? Is there substantial organic search risk of any kind to the old site, beyond the obvious of just not having those pages to produce any more? Anything else? Any ideas about how long the new site can expect to wander the wilderness of no organic search traffic? The old site has a 45 domain authority. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
How much SEO damage would it do having a subdomain site rather directory site?
Hi all! With a coleague we were arguing about what is better: Having a subdomain or a directory.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gaston Riera
Let me explain some more, this is about the cases: Having a multi-language site: Where en.domain.com or es.domain.com rather than domain.com/en/ or domain.com/es/ Having a Mobile and desktop version: m.domain.com or domain.com rather than domain.com/m or just domain.com. Having multiple location websites, you might figure. The dicussion started with me saying: Its better to have a directory site.
And my coleague said: Its better to have a subdomain site. Some of the reasons that he said is that big companies (such as wordpress) are doing that. And that's better for the business.
My reasons are fully based on this post from Rand Fishkin: Subdomains vs. Subfolders, Rel Canonical vs. 301, and How to Structure Links for SEO - Whiteboard Friday So, what does the community have to say about this?
Who should win this argue? GR.0 -
How to get backlinks
I know that we should get the reputable backlinks for the website But which websites I'm doing seo nobody wants to exchange backlinks so how can I get reputable backlinks related to niche.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ramansaab0 -
installed PageSpeed Module on our server but no difference to site
Hi
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Direct_Ram
I have been searching for an answer for a while now and couldnt find it so maybe someone has had a similar problem. We have installed PageSpeed Module on our server. The administrator has said it is active and has run a test below: [root@mydomain ~]# curl -D- https://www.mydomain.com/ | head -10
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
14 102k 14 15029 0 0 40506 0 0:00:02 --:--:-- 0:00:02 64780HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/1.6.0
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 11:28:43 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 104885
Connection: keep-alive
Set-Cookie: ci_session=BGANYlg8VmsPLgN1AWABMldkAGUGLVZwVmhQdQd0CGIEaFI6VgkEOQdmUSYHbQZyXz9TZVE4Vm4CIwxnB2hYbAZrAGUHZQg%2BUjUFOgRlUWAEYg05WDxWMg82A2ABOQEzV2IAaQZsVjBWPFA2BzEIaAQ%2FUjBWNwRmBztRJgdtBnJfP1NnUTpWbgIjDDoHflhSBjwAMgdjCHlSNAVwBHdRJwQ6DStYM1ZgD2YDPAF4ATJXZABmBiFWMVY%2FUD4HKQg5BDRSelZnBGAHIFE%2FByUGO180U2ZRMFZ2AnQMIAdrWH8GAgA3B2AIblI%2FBXcEJlE%2BBHINYlg4VmAPZwM8AXgBYFchAC0GY1YsVjpQKAc2CDIEKVJjVnYEeAd6UTwHYAZeXzNTYlEnViYCZAw3B2ZYbAYpAHsHawhiUj8FdgR8USgEZg02WHxWeA91A2oBMwFhVzcAKgZ9Vm9WIlAxBykIOgQ%2BUnpWYQRwB0xRVwcFBi5fNlN4UTtWYgIvDGEHIFg%2BBn0AFAdmCHhSOAVgBCRRQARCDRtYKVYrDzkDbwE4ASxXZQBxBj1WLVY%2BUCYHawhiBGVSPVYyBD4HLVE1B3gGMF89U3ZRZlY9AmMMIAd9WGUGbwB5BzYIJVJlBS0ENlEnBDoNK1gzVmAPZgM8AXgBb1c1ACwGe1ZcVmxQZQdzCGIEcVI9ViIEKQcgUT8HPwY7XzRTYlE4VmwCNwxlBztYPgZvAGUHPAh4UmsFOgQ%2BUScEdA0rWGxWIw8KA2IBOwF3VzUAfQY0VnBWN1A2Bz0IKQQlUm9WKw%3D%3D; expires=Fri, 10-Apr-2015 13:28:43 GMT; path=/
Set-Cookie: ci_session=a%3A0%3A%7B%7D; expires=Thu, 10-Apr-2014 21:28:43 GMT; path=/
Set-Cookie: ci_session=BWEFalk4UWwJKFIq; expires=Fri, 10-Apr-2015 13:28:43 GMT; path=/
X-Mod-Pagespeed: 1.9.32.3-4448 But there doesn't seem to be any difference to the sites speed or change in google speed test recommendations. I do not have much knowledge on servers but the server company has assured me it is active and all the filters are on - so not sure why I am not seeing anything different. if anyone has any advise on this it would be great. thanks E0 -
Ranking sites in vertical markets with 90% scraped content
Hi, Hoping to get advice about ranking sites (a vertical market search engine/portal like a car site for example) that gets its content from scraping car sites. For various reasons (mostly scale eg cant get car dealers to push their listings to us) content was scraped. The startup has received great press, TV interviews, incubator programs etc, and has also secured very significant investment. I feel if this site was launched pre-panda it would be ranking much better. We have invested significantly in our tech, our search tools and site innovation place us easily as market leader in this space. Anyone with experience in ranking sites with legitimate reasons for using scraped content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edthomasnp0 -
Pop Up Advertisement - Bad for SEO?
So i have been working with a company running their SEO for close to two years now. Since i started to engage with them they have always used a very simple pop up for the first time an end user visits their website (via javascript and cookies). The pop up simply ask them if they would like to download a solutions brochure from their website. So as far as pop ups go, it is at least relevant. The client loves this pop up, i do not. For a while we have always held spots #1-3 for a lot of our keywords but we have started to drop to lower on the first page. So i have been researching to see if some of the new algorithm changes are targeting sites with this type of functionality. If i have some data i could definitely get them to remove it. So the question is, do pop-ups hurt your organic ranking? Thanks for the input! Kyle
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kchandler1 -
Are paid directories any good?
Hi Everyone, I have have listing our site in free directories. Are there any paid directories that are worth listing in? Our company and site is based in New Zealand. Thanks, Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hardley10