Best way to link 150 websites together
-
Fellow mozzers,
Today I got an interesting question from an entrepreneur who has plans to start about 100-200 webshops on a variety of subjects. His question was how he should like them together. He was scared that if he would just make a page on every website like: www.domain.com/our-webshops/ that would list all of the webshops he would get penalised because it is a link farm.
I wasn't sure 100% sure which advise to give him so i told him i needed to do some research on the subject to make sure that i'm right.
I had a couple of suggestions myself.
1. Split the amount of pages by 3 and divide them into three columns. Column A links to B, B links to C and C links to A. I realize this is far from ideal but it was one of the thoughts which came up.
2. Divide all the webshops into different categories. For example: Webshops aimed at different holidays, webshops aimed at mobile devices etcetera. This way you will link the relevant webshops together instead of all of them. Still not perfect.
3. Create a page on a separate website (such as a company website) where the /our-webshops/ page exists. This way you only have to place a link back from the webshops to this page. I've seen lots of webshops using this technique and i can see why they choose to do so. Still not ideal in my opinion.
That's basicly my first thoughts on the subject. I would appreciate any feedback on the methods described above or even better, a completely different strategy in handling this. For some reason i keep thinking that i'm missing the most obvious and best method.
-
Hi Wesley,
I am glad to be of help. Hopefully there's a way you can still work with the gentleman and do something that will still generate a good ROI, but does not use the tactics he originally wanted to.
I wish you up when you speak with him.
I'll all the best my friend,
Thomas
-
Hi Keri,
Thank you for updating me that's really good to know.
I apologize for the mistake. Please know that I I've seen EGOL answer so many questions so well over the years that I actually believed he was the Content director here.
My apologies and fantastic job EGOL & Keri you've each always had allot of wisdom in your replies and comments.
All the best,
Thomas
-
Quick correction: EGOL's title is Content Director, but he does not work for Moz as either staff or associate (though we're thankful he dedicates so much of his own time to Q&A).
-
Thank you Mike, Thomas and EGOL for your advice. You have confirmed my fears that there is no good way to do it since it is indeed kind of a link farm. I will give him the advice to not link the webshops together as you suggested
Thanks again
-
I wouldn't work on the webshops and they would not consist of only one page. From what i gathered every webshop will evolve a theme and have at least 5 different categories of products.
-
I want to say I completely and totally agree with EGOL
He is content the content director here at Moz
I would put the most stock into his advice.
You can be doing much better things your time than doing what this client wants.
-
I would simply say...
If I owned a business like yours I would not build 150 different one-page websites. I don't think it is going to be a good use of your time and money.
If he wanted me to work on them I would decline.
-
PS
I had recently been approached by a person who essentially had done exactly what you're describing, but they only used about 20 domains. Regardless they were penalized so hard they were delisted from Google. Unfortunately for that person when I told them the cost to fix it the gentleman was shocked that it would cost a minimum of tens of thousands of dollars to have the penalty lifted from his website and what you're describing is exactly what his being proposed to to do.
in the end I could not get the person to agree to not build another like scheme I'm being serious so I bowed out and let the client go I don't want my name associated with that type of work and honestly when a client won't listen to you it's not really going to end up being worth your time.
I'm not saying that the guy won't listen to you.
If you want me to tell you the best way to link them together separate whois separate c blocks entirely separate hosting this is just the tip of the iceberg and it's going to get caught either way. I honestly would tell the client the truth you don't want to start with a bad foundation. He will make more money having a higher ranking on a legitimate domain that's not a link scheme that will someday fall down.
I would hope that the person would understand.
All the best my friend,
Thomas
-
Unfortunately, I would tell him that it will violate googles guidelines if he is trying to profit in any way by linking them together and not give a better user experience he is going to be penalized. It is essentially a link farm unfortunately he would have to put everything on separate C blocks with separate who is it the list goes on and trust me you don't want to do it. He should focus the attention on whatever the web shop sells allowing it on one domain per a subject or group of subjects, but say I sell outdoors gear will I can put camping and canoes and whatever else on that domain I would mark it as a separate site entirely never interlink sites that you know or not directly relevant to each other.
It really is a shady way of doing it unfortunately I would tell him that Google's guidelines are pretty clear about this type of stuff and advice he can demonstrate how this would better the and user not himself in any way then he should of course continue working with you and you'd be happy to help them build the correct way either naming it one company or keeping the domains separate for separate web stores that do not have any relevancy to Eachother.
I hope that helps,
Thomas
-
Why do they want all their shops linked together anyway?
Honestly if you really have to link them together then only link the sites that are relevant to one another and NoFollow the links. That should/could lessen any signals telling Google that your family of sites are just a link scheme. It's more a precautionary measure than anything. Don't worry if there isn't a chain of links that eventually ties every single one to each other somehow.... you don't want that. If its not a link scheme then you want to do whatever you can to make all of those links look as legitimate as possible so there are no questions about whether an algorithmic penalty is in your future.
-
I was surprised by the amount of webshops too. The webshops were very diverse in product categories from what he told me. Still i have a hard time believing that he wants that much.
Aside from that, i'm still curious what would be the best approach to link these websites together.
Thank you for the reply
-
Either way you cut it, sounds like a poor man's linking scheme to me.
Have they considered, perhaps, one or two sites with a bunch of relevant categories? Somehow I feel like starting and running 100-200 legitimate shops like that would be more of a headache than just taking all the related products and slapping them together.
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 can I identify links that point to a specific landing page with a specific anchor text on my own website?
I am trying to identify buttons and links that point to a specific landing page on our website that have a certain word in the anchor text and I would like to know the referring page URL too. Does anybody have an idea on how to do this? We have above a hundred landing pages and I would rather not go through them one by one 😄 Thanks for the help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 10to8-Moz0 -
Google WMT/search console: Thousands of "Links to your site" even only one back-link from a website.
Hi, I can see in my search console that a website giving thousands of links to my site where hardly only one back-link from one of their page to our page. Why this is happening? Here is screenshot: http://imgur.com/a/VleUf
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
New websites
Hi Moz community, My company updated and used a new developer to build and re-design their charity websites: www.runforcharity.com, www.cycleforcharity.com and www.sportforcharity.com. This sites were "re-launched" at the beggining of December 2015 and I have now been able to get a good 6 weeks worth of data. I've been religiously using Moz.com for a couple of years and I use it simply for SEO purposes. Our websites are built upon organic traffic being driven to them and I have noticed that the PA on the new sites has taken a hammering. They all appear to have a PA of 1 and I'm at a loss why? It appears that no page has h1 text? Would this be an issue with the developer or something the content team is doing wrong? Any help of advice would be much appreciated. Many thanks Ryan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bennerya0 -
Credit Links on Client Websites
I know there have been several people who have asked this but a lot of them were back in 2012 before many of the google changes. My question is the same though. With all the changes with Google's algorithm. Is it okay to put your link on the bottom of your clients website. Like Web Design by, etc. Part of the reason is to drive traffic but also if someone is actually interested who designed the website, they will click it. But now reading about how bad links can hurt you tremendously, it makes me second guess if this is ok. My gut feeling says, no.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | blackrino0 -
URL Value: Menu Links vs Body Content Links
Hi All, I'm a little confused. I have read a number of articles from authority sites that give mixed signals over the importance of menu links vs body content links. It is suggested that whilst all menu links spread link juice equally, Google does not see them as favourably. Inserting a link within the body will add more link juice value to the desired page. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch0 -
To recover from Penguin update, shall i remove the links or disavow links?
Hi, One of our websites hit by Penguin update and I now know where the links are coming from. I have chance to remove the links from those incoming links but I am a little confused whether i should just remove the links from incoming links or disavow the links? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rubix0 -
What are your thoughts on using Dripable, VitaRank, or similar service to build URL links too dilute link profile???
One of my sites has a very spamy link profile, top 20 anchors are money keywords. What are your thoughts on using Dripable, VitaRank, or similar service to help dilute the link profile by building links with URLs, Click Here, more Info, etc. I have been building URL links already, but due to the site age(over 12 years) the amount of exact match anchor text links is just very large and would take forever to get diluted.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 858-SEO0 -
What is the best way to allow content to be used on other sites for syndication without taking the chance of duplicate content filters
Cookstr appears to be syndicating content to shape.com and mensfitness.com a) They integrate their data into partner sites with an attribution back to their site and skinned it with the partners look. b) they link the image back to their image hosted on cookstr c) The page does not have microformats or as much data as their own page does so their own page is better SEO. Is this the best strategy or is there something better they could be doing to safely allow others to use our content, we don't want to share the content if we're going to get hit for a duplicate content filter or have another site out rank us with our own data. Thanks for your help in advance! their original content page: http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/sauteacuteed-escarole-with-pancetta their syndicated content pages: http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/healthy-recipes/recipe/sauteacuteed-escarole-with-pancetta
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | irvingw
http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/healthy-recipes/recipe/sauteacuteed-escarole-with-pancetta0