Linking to each other: when companies merge
-
Here's the scenario:
An AC company bought two plumbing companies. The plumbing websites and the plumbing company names will stay the same for at least a year. Then the two plumbing websites will merge and have a new domain and website. However, we will already make small modifications to the two plumbing websites to introduce the new owner.
Is it okay to create the following links?
AC Company < > Plumbing Company 1 (linking to each other)
AC Company < Plumbing Company 2 (one way link)After the merge is completed:
AC Company < > new Plumbing Company Inc
new Plumbing Company Inc < (301 redirect) Plumbing Company 1
new Plumbing Company Inc < (301 redirect) Plumbing Company 2My questions: Could the links described above raise a red flag or cause any other issues? The links are not at all meant to be spammy. They are meant to advertise for the other company's services and let the customer know that the Plumbing and AC companies are under one roof.
I am thankful for every opinion.
Johannes
-
No it has no relevance at all. Majority of the time people that want to link their sites together, they are under the same host. With the whole same host or IP and linking one another not coming up as a problem, it should be noted that it won't hurt you in any way.
But things could easily change or there might be variables we don't know. If you want to play it safe, just make the links one way and not reciprocal.
-
True: Not using keywords in the anchor text should already help to prevent raising a red flag.
-
Thank you for the amazon and Hayneedle sample. I know that I am not amazon and Hayneedle is a good warning.
My concern is less the linkjuice. I also might not use the link in a footer (especially after your examples). Probably the link would be placed in the header, in a blog post or in a slide. The aim would be to inform the customer about the additional service.
So they might think: "I liked this AC company. So their plumbing service should be good, too."
-
The problem is.... Google can not determine "intent". And, they can smack you down without warning or appeal.
I am willing to bet nice money that Hayneedle's problem was interlinking.
I have a few links between my sites but for the most part they do not link to one another. And, it will be a cold day in Hades before I am putting up footer links like Amazon - even when my sites are tightly related and it might be good for visitors.
But, that is just my conservative philosophy. I might be losing out.
-
Thank you William!
So you are thinking that having the websites on the same IP address lowers the chances, that Google is thinking that the links might be spam?
-
There is absolutely nothing wrong with reciprocal linking if it isn't being done to manipulate the rankings. If linking to a site is going to benefit your users (ie: show them you also own/operate a plumbing company) then go for it.
-
Andrew is 100% correct, the big sites definitely get a pass. Google cannot penalize a site like amazon because users will go to a different search engine to find what they are searching for. Your sites on the other hand Google does not care about because no one will miss it if it's gone.
The best is to one way link from the weaker site to the stronger site - I would not interlink them both because it looks like reciprocal linking which is a dead SEO technique. Also you want to pass PR to your more powerful site and retain the PR on that site by not interlinking out to other sites. And as William pointed out, easy on the anchor texts or you may find penalized rankings for those terms.
-
I would have zero hesitation to link these sites together. It is normal and natural for sites under the same ownership or that are partners with each other to link to each other.
I would however, be sure to link with the company name. Don't go for major anchor text like 'city name plumber'.
-
Amazon can also get away with things that most sites would never get away with. Google is not about to take Amazon out of the rankings so they get a bit more leeway.
If this is indeed a linkjuice play, I would probably avoid it and just focus on what is going to deliver the best user experience.
-
If you go to amazon.com and look at the footer, you will find a huge list of links out to 23 other properties that are affiliated with amazon.com. These are all followed footer links.
If you go to these other properties such as diapers.com you will find many footer links out to a couple of other domains. Not all 23 domains but they are linking to multiple deep pages on one or two domains.
Last year Hayneedle stores got slapped out of the SERPs for a couple of weeks and my thought was that their huge interlinking network of stores was the problem. Hayneedle severely cut their interlinking and returned to the SERPs in competitive form. They still don't have the huge list of links to other properties on their site so I believe that the links caused them problems.
I would be afraid to do this type of linking on my sites but amazon.com does it and continues to be one of the most difficult to beat sites in the retail space. So, I am not recommending this... just pointing at somebody doing this at an extreme level and not seeming to suffer from it on the domain where the links are displayed or the domains where the links are received.
In my opinion, this is a linkjuice play, not something useful for their visitors because amazon sells all of the products on amazon.com
-
No it will not. Normally, Google wouldn't penalize if this is just a one time thing and you are not known for linking back and forth to one another or in any way associated with networks that do these type of links.
Also sites that are under one host or same IP will not give Google any reason to penalize you because many domains have the same IP (vast majority of sites are on shared hosting any way).
So you are safe to go and shouldn't worry about that. In the end it will just be AC Company < > new Plumbing Company Inc.
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
-
How do I search for a link within a competitors website that is linking my website?
Hello, I have just been checking my link profile and according to webmaster tools a competitor is linking to my website. Is there anyway of finding this link besides looking at every page within their website? Many thanks
Link Building | | mblsolutions0 -
Link Relevance vs Link Authority ?
Hi guys, I have a quick question regarding some low quality links my site is getting. From the information in Open Site Explorer, the website Im talking about has a page authority of 16 while the domain authority is 11\. These are very low quality scores in my oppinion and Im thinking of removing them with Google Disavow Tool. The thing is that, although the domain is low quality, the links have relevance as they're in the same business sector as us. More exactly, the name of the domain is taxisavona and the company I work for is also a taxi company. So, now I`m thinking, should I disavow the link because of it's low scores or should I leave it because it is relevant to our business ? Thank you in advance! Best regards, Tiberiu Iavorenciuc
Link Building | | Tiberiu0 -
Outbound links
We are working with a large, global customer that has asked us to link to their website from about 5,000 pages of our website. The links would either point to one page on their website, or they would point to specific pages throughout their website. Is this a bad thing from an SEO perspective, as in - would either of us be penalized from search engines for doing this?
Link Building | | Prospector-Plastics0 -
Can anybody recommend a link building company for outsource?
I am about to land another fat client and it's in a highly competitive industry. While looking at the competition, it is clear to me that the competitors have an SEO link building team. Since Americans are too expensive for the budget allocated to this project, I need to outsource to India, Philippines, or some third world nation. CAN ANYONE RECOMMEND A GOOD LINK BUILDING COMPANY IN A DEVELOPING NATION (EDITED: 3RD WORLD) COUNTRY?
Link Building | | Francisco_Meza0 -
Do links within imbeddable widgets carry link juice?
I'm dipping my toes into infographic design. On of my desired outcomes is to gain links by having other sites embed my graphic. I'm considering using Tableau's interactive data visualization software to do so; thus creating a widget, embedding it on my blog, and including the embed code for others to post. Is it possible to include a juice passing link in such an infographic? I know its possible to include links inside the tableau graphic but not sure if they have straight SEO value. If these links are not juice passing would it be better to go with a simple image link that passes value?
Link Building | | JesseCWalker1 -
Link to those that link to you? Worthwhile?
We have thousands and thousands of sites that link to a domain we are working on, many with low page authority and high domain (bloggers, forum posts, etc). Has anyone experimented with linking to the pages that link to you (not from your site) but from other means in an effort to boost their quality? I'm not sure what method we would use, maybe some relevant blog comments or social votes. But curious if this could be an effective method.
Link Building | | iAnalyst.com0 -
Where do you buy your links from
OK which brokers / sites do you use to buy your links or gain links from and why.
Link Building | | therealmarkhall0 -
SEOs and web developers frequently leave links to their site in the footer of their clients' sites. Does this negatively impact the site with the links?
Does this provide any SEO value to the receiving site? Has anyone experienced problems doing this?
Link Building | | KatMouse2