4 replies to this topic

[gimmestones]

I've the following question:

Suppose I exchange a reciprocal link with webiste A and with website B and those two websites are interlinked and are designed by the same person and share the same IP-address, can this hurt your SERPS in anyway?

Thx.

[1dmf]

From what I've been told, NO.

I have 20+ websites, which are hosted by us on our server , but are legitimate other companies websites, we have a White Labelled Website service for our members.

As part of their regulatory compliance, they have an image which links to our site, our site is also hosted on the same server.

I've not noticed any harm done to our ranking.

Now because of having so many sites on one server all linking to another , it may have attracted eyes from the admin team, but when checking they would see everything is perfectly legit.

they wouldn't simply carpet penalise people because of websites on the same IP linking to each other, think about the countless sites legitimately hosted on the same server because they use shared hosting web services.

What I do note though is not one of these sites show up in GWMT as inbound links nor do they show in link:mydomain , but when asking that question I was told the links part of Google has never really worked so forget about it.

So don't worry too much about this, whether the link juice however is diluted in any way well that's another story and I have no idea of the answer.

Edited by 1dmf, 25 July 2007 - 07:11 AM.

[Randy]

You don't have to worry about it with the example you've given gimmestones. That's natural and normal.

You'd have to go way overboard or start linking to a group of sites that are trying to fool the search engines to get yourself into any trouble. As long as they're all legitimate sites that can stand on their own merit you're fine.

[Scottie]

Don't link to sites that are doing something sneaky or deceitful. If the site you are linking to (and the site it links to) are valid, useful sites, it doesn't matter that they link to each other.

What you want to watch out for are sites that link to crappy made-for-search-engines-not-people sites.

Think about it like this: If you would be embarrassed if visitors thought your site endorsed a site you are linking to, don't link to it. If you're pleased to recommend the other site, then link away.

[Michael Martinez]

Hotels.com exchanges links with 16 partner sites (all well-known brands that rank highly in search results) that are, so far as I know, all owned by the same entity. I don't think they use the same IP address but they are still all operated by the same corporate organization.

Would you reject a link exchange with any one of those sites?

CNN, ABC News, Fox News, CBS News, MSNBC, and other major American news organizations have all linked to each other through their stories.

Would you reject a link exchange with any one of those sites?

Reciprocal linking is not a crime against search. But if all you're doing to get links is exchanging them with other sites, that's more of a crime against yourself. The search engines may or may not decide to ignore your links but you're not going to build much visibility through reciprocal links. You want your inbound links to be noticeable. You want people to honestly recommend to their visitors that they visit your site, too.