7 replies to this topic

[omahonydonnelly]

I manage sites for two hotels that are owned by the same company. I am worried about overdoing the links between the sites. Would a link between the sites on all the pages be overkill? I was thinking that specific links between related pages would be better; i.e. pages about weddings, conferences, etc.

Anyone have any experience with this?

[Jill]

I'd put the links only where they make sense from a human point of view. That may or may not be a link from every page.

[omahonydonnelly]

I'd put the links only where they make sense from a human point of view. That may or may not be a link from every page.

Thanks, Jill.

[mountainbound]

I manage three relatively large sites and have wondered the same thing. Would a link in the footer (which shows on every page) to my sister sites be a breach? One might argue this is branding awareness.

[Michael Martinez]

Footer links between sister sites are usually tolerated. In some cases they are ignored.

If you're not sure, use "rel='nofollow'" and then you don't have to worry. I would definitely want them on my sites to show people the sister sites.

I have used standard margin links between my personal sites for years and have suffered no penalties of which I am aware. There is nothing deceptive in telling people about your other properties.

[Randy]

Whereas I tend to take a different approach.

If two of my sites are closely related enough so that users of one might like another, I link between them in a fairly prominent way. Not nearly on every page though. And often only on a single page where I list other sites that might be of interest to users. And yes I make it very plain if I'm linking to another of my own sites.

Otherwise the only links I've ever had between any of my sites is more of a housekeeping thing on an About Us page. Sometimes, when it's important for users, I'll link from an About Us page back to the corporate site. One which doesn't actually sell anything. This corporate site however did link to each of the properties.

I've never had any issues with this approach. And I can pretty much guarantee you that Google knows which sites I run and which I don't. (Long story that, having to do with their duplicate filters and what happened once when a site went offline temporarily.)

Torka on the other hand has a setup with her day job where they own a few different domains and it's all very inter-related. So they link back and forth copiously. Again, no issues.

So there really isn't a single right or wrong answer. Other than it's probably important to be 100% transparent in whatever you do and make sure you're linking for the users benefit, and not simply trying to drive link pop for the sake of doing it.

[mountainbound]

So there really isn't a single right or wrong answer. Other than it's probably important to be 100% transparent in whatever you do and make sure you're linking for the users benefit, and not simply trying to drive link pop for the sake of doing it.

Thanks to you both. I'm not sure I'll go the footer route, but will work to include more links soon.

[Jill]

mountainbound, how would you link to them if search engines didn't exist?

That should help you figure out the best route.