Reciprocal linking across holding
-
Hi there,
I was wondering if the following setup might be harmful for SEO of is frowned upon by Google:
I manage a couple of websites that belong to a specific company within a holding company. What is allowed regarding reciprocal linking? The current setup is like this:
- Site A: one-page general website about the holding, links to sites B, C, D on the homepage (follow link)
- Site B: website for a specific company branch, links to SITE A in the footer of each page (follow link)
- Site website for a specific company branch, links to SITE A in the footer of each page (follow link)
- Site website for a specific company branch, links to SITE A in the footer of each page (follow link)
Sites B,C,D don't link to each other, which is a good thing I guess, but should I change the links to nofollow, or is this not so harmful?
-
use it for cross navigational purposes only (user experience) don't use it for SEO or you'll get penalized if you're passing page juice. Nofollow all of them by default if you need to interlink, better you don''t interlink them.
-
RBenedict,
What you are describing is not reciprocal linking. You are a holding company with a legitimate purpose in your linking as well. Here is the GWMT page on Linking Schemes. The language is quite clear on what a "scheme" is:
Any links intended to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site, or outgoing links from your site. Manipulating these links may affect the quality of our search results, and as such is a violation of Google’sWebmaster Guidelines.
I would not nofollow and they are not harmful.
Best
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
-
Reciprocal Backlinks
Hi all, We've just started looking into backlinks for our website, and we're...a bit overwhelmed to say at least. We thought the best way to start with backlinks is to reach out to our industry partners, and ask them to put a link to our website on theirs (in a blog, or a relevant page of course), as it's relevant for users. However, the question we almost always get is, can you do the same and link back to our website? How does google look at reciprocal links? We think they can be seen as a 'transaction of links' and not have as much link juice as links which aren't reciprocal. Is there any best practice for how to approach this? Thank you in advance. Diana
Link Building | | dianacatrinoi0 -
What is a natural link?
Hi everyone, I'm trying to better understand what is meant by a natural link and would appreciate any assistance. Doing some competitor link analysis I've noticed a web developer who has created a directory for all its customers. This is not a directory in the traditional sense of being of use to an end user, but to my untrained eyes, it looks like an internal directory used solely for the purpose of link building. For all I know this might be perfectly good practice in the industry, but as a beginner, I'm attempting to get an understanding of things. My question is, what precisely is meant by a natural link? If the above scenario is all ok, whereby there are businesses in the same field of work, but ultimately could be in any given location, on a directory, are they natural links? Do these kind of directories that don't service an end user, exist if the common feature between them is say location only, or an seo agency only? Appreciate I could be completely out of kilter on this, but it seems the benefit on SERPs is pretty significant for something that seems pretty "unnatural" to me? Any guidance would be appreciated...tom
Link Building | | T-J-I1 -
Linking to Media Mentions
I'm doing SEO for a high-profile lawyer who has received numerous media mentions. My hope is that linking from her site to these media mentions will enable Google to make the connection. The difficulty is that their business name is their own name. I'm thinking this will make it harder for Google to make the connection. It's not appropriate to request links from the articles (they typically relate to murder trials). Any suggestions?
Link Building | | steer150 -
Is a reciprocal link the same value as a non-reciprocal
So I just started a few weeks ago doing some linkbuilding for my photography site at http://danielvaladas.com I started by adding my site to some of the business directories recommended by SeoMoz + some local and specialized directories I found myself and from my competitors. I also sponsored a local charity in exchange for a link on their PR3 website and I wanted to blog on my site about this sponsorship. I am wondering if it is better to link back to them or not. Is this one way link of more value if I don't link back to them?
Link Building | | valadas0 -
Link or Ad
I recently requested a link back from a site that is ranking 2nd for a term that i'm working on and they said they would gladly give me the link and remove my competitors but would also like me to have an ad on the same page for an annual fee that i could link to a landing page. I know that paying for links is no good and google can penalize you. so do i pay them and do a no follow to the landing page from the ad and call it a day? and how does google differentiate an ad from a link?
Link Building | | CHiP_RuN0 -
Link building
Folks would you recommend i build a link on this site for $30... http://www.web-directory-australia.info please let me know detailed reasons as to your recommendation as I'm a new SEO and learning as much as I can 🙂
Link Building | | PHDAustralia680 -
Do image links with no alt tags pass link value?
"... an image link with no alt tag is useless to search engines..." according to a Nov 2007 seomoz blog post. Is this still the case in 2011? I ask because I'm about to obtain a banner link on a high-traffic site (chiefly for the clickthrough value) but I notice the site uses neither "title" nor "alt" tags.
Link Building | | Jeepster0 -
Linking domains on same ip
I don't know if i can post a link in the question so if you google 800 appliance and do a little reaserch on them you will see that it has many links with same content linking to the main domain and to each other. They hosted on the same ip which from what i read doesn't supposed to help in ranking. I saw many nich websites like this with the same idea. What am i missing here...?
Link Building | | atohad0