17 replies to this topic

[Michael Martinez]

In my experience, interlinking Websites is rarely as big an issue as fear makes it out to be. However, in those situations where the problem *IS* the interlinking, then the interlinking is pretty egregious and obvious.

Having 5-10 sites interlink to each other in a 1-line footer on every page is not usually egregious if the sites are all clearly owned by the same entity (footer links are typically given low weight or value). However, if those 5-10 sites interlink with each other in a reciprocal linking program through articles or link list pages then the links may be seen as manipulative.

What is the intention behind the links? How are they denoted? If they are there for the visitors' sakes you should be fine. If they are there to conserve, boost, carve, push, or sculpt PageRank within a micronet, you're probably trying too hard.

[seobarry]

Thanks for the replies. Interesting to hear about a similar case. I hope the changes you made work for you, we are in the process of making similar changes too now, removing a lot of ad content and replacing those by useful content, I hope it helps.

Regarding the interlinking, the sites had just a few links between them. However, the links were SEO optimized in the sense that they were using keyword rich anchor text rather than the website's names.
I would also think that this amount of linking shouldn't hurt that much but since I thought it was striking that all sites that got hit were interlinked and in the same analytics account, I thought that could perhaps have been the cause.

[Michael Martinez]

There is nothing in the Google Webmaster Guidelines that says you cannot or should not put more than Website into an analytics account. Since they don't forbid the practice, it's not going to get any sites penalized.

Interlinking can certainly be abused. If you feel the links are not there for the benefit of the visitor, then I suggest you make them benefit the user or remove them. At least that should give you peace of mind.

Most people assume their links are passing far more value than they actually do. SEO is not, never has been, probably never will be all about links.