Is cross-linking websites bad? What is your experience?

[CommercePundit]

Today, I was watching video about Is cross-linking websites bad? on Google Webmaster YouTube channel.

I've big confusion on this subject because, I have made big changes on this factor. I have removed my website link from two websites.

Both websites are top to link my website. But, I have removed it due to certain issue. I have hyperlink following page with Patio Umbrellas keyword.

http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas

I know that, I have to maintain my inbound link statistics and that's why I'm going to add my website link with Patio Umbrellas text link to my clients' websites.

I have already added it to certain clients' websites and going to add in another clients' websites.

You can review my link in footer.

http://www.tikitorchbargains.com/

http://www.firepitbargains.com/

http://www.curtainrodbargains.com/

These websites have similar subject to my website. Now, websites' subject is totally different to my website where I will my text link in footer.

After big explanation:: I have one big question. Will it help me to out rank well with Patio Umbrellas keyword?

Do you have any experience about positive performance or negative performance?

Is it advisable or not? If no so why?

Thanks...

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[CommercePundit]

Thanks for your reply. Honestly, I did not want to digging more on this question after getting your first reply. But, I just assumed that, I may get some additional information from your experience. Finally, I'm going to Mark as answered.

[AmieMarse]

As a general rule, never blame something else for a terrible bounce rate. It's your site or your copy or something you are doing. In the case of a forum link, maybe you aren't being descriptive about what sort of link it is.

Ian Lurie made a stellar point in his most recent Moz PRO webinar about how to give people what they are looking for in order to lower bounce rates.

For example, if you have a forum signature that reads "check out my site" and your site has nothing to do with the forum you are guaranteed to have a pitiful bounce rate. On the other hand, if you are on an A/V forum which is closely related to your site and your forum signature reads, "for more information about how to set up A/V cables click on my site" - you'll have a much better bounce rate. Especially if that link goes to a super helpful link about setting up A/V cables.

[CommercePundit]

No need to say sorry! That's my pleasure to read such a fabulous reply. I got your point about user interest. Google may track that data by Google Analytics. What you think about it?

My website's link is available on SEOmoz and getting visits from there. That user may spend more time on my website because all Mozzers are eager to read or know about new websties... Am I right?

If I'm on sewing tutorial forum and getting visits which have huge bounce rate so Google can assume that... inbound link is quite in-relevant which is available on sewing tutorial forum... This is my assumption how Google can take care user interest about inbound links...

Again, I'm ready to read your valuable reply...

[AmieMarse]

First - kudos for tagging me on Twitter - love it

Here's my thinking for forums:

Be intentional about the forums you want to associate your brand with. If for example you use your company website for an SEO forum that makes sense. Everybody online should be learning about SEO. Besides, the traffic I get from SEOmoz is primo. Always a lot of time on site, lots of pageviews. I assume most of it is peers because I rarely convert from SEOmoz, but it's a good traffic source to have around.

It would be unwise for you to associate your company/brand with a forum that is completely unrelated. For example, you wouldn't want to sign up for a forum about Starcraft with your company name. Sure - lots of people are gamers, but Google is smart and you don't want someone researching your site to see your starcraft profile. Unless of course your brand is using lifestyle marketing and starcraft fits within that lifestyle.

Here's my logic:

Rand talks about this at length in many of the webinars, that Google tracks words that are associated with your brand name. So on one hand this means you should always use major keywords within your profile description on various sites. You should go out and make appropriate profiles for your business.

This also tells me that the true test of whether or not your brand should be on a particular forum is if your keywords are appropriate for the forum.

Also note that a bunch of bogus forum profiles is a trademark of spammy backlinks. I can only imagine that a ton of unrelated forum profiles might set off some alarms with the Google algorithm, and even if it doesn't today - it probably will down the road. So just to be safe, whichever forums you are signed up for - be sure to check in at least monthly so they aren't deserted. A huge example is OnlyWire. This is great for backlinking but to get the most benefit from a service like this go through the hassle of filling out the profile completely and go to each bookmark profile once a month and do some interaction.

Lastly, you never know how a potential customer might see your company name. You don't want your first impression to be a bogus forum profile or an empty profile.

Wow - I guess I had a lot more than I thought I would on that subject, sorry

[CommercePundit]

I'm 100% agree with you. If we are talking about inbound links from different subject website so what about discussion board. I'm quite active on SEOmoz and getting inbound links from SEOmoz.

Both websites are available with different subject so, will it mesh up my organic ranking?

[AmieMarse]

The issue seems pretty straightforward, only crosslink with appropriate sites. If your client has a dog treat store you shouldn't link to your umbrellas.

The reasons for this are numerous but mainly:

~ When you have an obviously not related link it will probably be viewed as a paid link and will get low cred anyway

~ You are lowering the site's usability/trust factor because when a human sees a link to a totally inappropriate site they will become confused, and/or think the site is shady. Shady feelings = lower trust = lower conversions

As far as your question, whenever you take the high road and only focus on improving a site's usability you win. If you want to get sneaky and try to fool the system you'll constantly have to check and recheck crosslinks to see if google has caught on. It's better to just focus on having legitimate links and improving site usability - this will always be viewed as a good thing, no matter how google changes.

BTW, I might be incredibly dense here but I don't see the links you referred to in this sentence - "Now, websites' subject is totally different to my website where I will my text link in footer." Instead I see the video and the links that are appropriate.

Hope that helps