Hey Mike Fan,

What you're looking at there is called a data reference link (that ylt= attribute gives it away). In short, it is indeed a followed link and would pass any authority you'd expect from a plain old link. The big difference is in how it's used.

The _ylt type variables are data packets. They contain specific base64 encoded data. The link could be a login, referential data, tracking data, or even spyware. The main point is someone making that link wants to keep track of who's doing what with it. On large sites, it's actually more common than you'd think for tracking purposes.

In short, this link is probably fine, even if it's a little scary looking in the page source. When a site that famously no=follows uses a followed link, you better believe they're going to track what's going on when they do.

Mike

Good point EGOL.

Hi Limens,

Good question. It's not unreasonable to say that this sort of thing happens entirely innocently all the time. For example, I work for a company that has one main site about the company as a whole, and seven other sites to advertise the company's services in different niches like content writing, SEO and web design. So all seven smaller sites will link to the main site and some will link to other small sites.

But when that's all you have, it starts to look suspicious. If your sites all share a Google AdSense account, that's a good way to get caught and penalized by Google. Same thing goes for the IP.

Don't be afraid to interlink the smaller sites to the main cooking site as long as it's natural. In other words, don't get too greedy with anchor text.

As far as interlinking the smaller domains with each other, it's a bit dangerous no matter what you do. Link a few where it makes sense then fill up on good quality links from other unique domains.

Mike

Right I see what you're getting at now. I wouldn't count on too much SEO benefit beyond what you'd normally expect from any other internal link. It sure makes keeping your site and internal link plan organized much easier though, right?

Hey nux,

You can also use a #tag system to sort all of your products, just like WordPress does with related posts. For example, you might sell sports equipment and both basketballs and baseballs are both tagged #balls. That will help an automatic system on your website display related products based on the tags.

Now, you can promote some products more than others. A lot of web developers will do so because they earn a higher conversion on a specific product or just have more luck selling it to visitors. Another reason I see a lot of web developers feature some products more than others is if they're gathering some traffic data on a product.

Mike

Hey Mike Fan,

What you're looking at there is called a data reference link (that ylt= attribute gives it away). In short, it is indeed a followed link and would pass any authority you'd expect from a plain old link. The big difference is in how it's used.

The _ylt type variables are data packets. They contain specific base64 encoded data. The link could be a login, referential data, tracking data, or even spyware. The main point is someone making that link wants to keep track of who's doing what with it. On large sites, it's actually more common than you'd think for tracking purposes.

In short, this link is probably fine, even if it's a little scary looking in the page source. When a site that famously no=follows uses a followed link, you better believe they're going to track what's going on when they do.

Mike