Should I NoFollow Links Between Our Company Websites?
-
The company I work for owns and operates hundreds of websites throughout the United States. Each of these is tied to a legitimate local business many times with specific regional branding and mostly unique content. All of our domains are in pretty good shape and have not ever participated in any shady link building/SEO.
These sites currently are often linking together between the other sites within their market. It makes perfect sense from a user standpoint since they would have an interest in each of the sites if they were interested in the specific offering that business had. My question is whether or not we should nofollow the links to our other sites. Nothing has happened from Google in terms of penalties and they don't seem to be hurting our sites now as they are all currently followed, but I also don't want to be on the false positive side of any future algorithm updates surrounding link quality.
What do you think? Keep them followed or introduce nofollow?
-
One person's 'mostly unique' and another person's 'duplicate' are two different things. Without knowing the domain(s), it felt like a good idea to cover that angle - just in case.
Though I would be inclined to agree in regard to unrelated links in many instances.
-
I get the link farm idea. However, a link farm typically is a cluster of spammy or low quality (PR0-1) sites that are set up for a link farm purpose.
If the vast majority of your websites are stand-alone, with quality and age, targeting specific markets, you don't have anything to worry about, in my opinion.
The remark about anchor text, however, is valid. Pull a report in Open Site Explorer and do a quick run over the anchor that is being used. If it is too keyword rich, I would play it safe and change the anchor to just the company name for example. From your comments I understand you are not linking from a pizza restaurant in Oregon to a bowling alley in Miami, correct? Businesses are related or the external link to the next website makes sense, correct? If not, followed or not followed is not the question, the link has to go.
Being honest and straightforward should not trigger a penalty from bots, simply because you happen to own those other websites.
-
So if the brand name is Super Cobblers and one of the locations is in Poughkeepsie, the anchor text would be 'Super Cobblers Poughkeepsie'? Seems pretty legit to me, without a concrete frame of reference.
When The Googles started busting down on site-wide footer links, I heard of quite a few 'City Website Design' took a beating. Though I don't know what else they were doing. It's pretty common for some webmasters to whine after a decisive action.
But you have to be careful about what you think is and isn't spammy. Until a few years ago a lot of people thought mass article and PR syndication, with a dose of free for all directories, was just fine. Their justification was; 'Because it works.' That's dangerous territory.
So, you could find yourself on the wrong side of an algorithm change - even though your intentions seemed good to you. Nothing is 100% safe or certain forever, especially in this line. But if everything else you're doing is definitely legit/above board, then you may well be okay for some time.
If you hear of some fairly definitive rumblings about your current practices, keep a nofollow version of your template(s) at the ready.
-
They're actually just linked with the name of the business which is generally a mix of brand, locatio and specialty. No manipulative keyword anchor text at all.
-
The one thing that comes to mind immediately is 'link farm'. But since you mentioned that it's 'mostly unique content' - you may be okay. Though I wondered how the anchor text looks.
Are sites linked with 'brand location' rather than 'money keyword location'? The former will look less manipulative, while the latter definitely looks manipulative. Anchor text matters. How are the sites linked?
I would imagine all of the sites are on the same host with the same registrar. Google, especially, would easily understand that the links are not earned. Rather, they are what is referred to as (by my understanding) 'nepotistic links'. Though the term can also be applied to 'paid links', which doesn't appear to be an issue at this moment. So initially, they would simply discount or disregard any juice the links would pass.
Yes, there is a line for what will get a site penalized. However that varies significantly by vertical. Often Google has to pick The Best of The Worst. So if you're in a somewhat or quite spammy vertical, you may have a little wiggle room. Don't get too cocky though. That is definitely not the only thing to consider.
-
any future algorithm updates surrounding link quality...
That's the $100 question right there. As it stands, all is peachy - but if Google decide to make an update (of which there are more than 500 per year), you could be spending a lot of time trying to repair what might have been an easy fix in the first place.
It's all about damage mitigation. If I were in your shoes, I would be probably be suggesting external links of this nature, were nofollowed.
-Andy
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
-
100 Links Warning
Our website is GarageFlooringLLC.com. We rank relatively well for our main keywords but I am always looking to rank better. The 100 links question has been discussed to no end but I believe our website provides a great example of why a small business might have more than 100 links and IF we need to drop below that. User Experience vs Rules I think it is fair to say that if customers cannot find what they are looking for, it does not matter how well you rank. Our menu is designed to get people to the page they want to be on in a single click. So What Now? Do we remove items from the menu and only link to categories adding an extra click or two to the customers UI or do we leave well enough alone
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GFLLCCO0 -
If I disavow bad Backlinks of my website. If, I create Backlinks again, those websites. Did that again become count in my Backlinks?
Hi, all please tell me. If I disavow bad Backlinks of my website. If, I create Backlinks again, those websites. Did that again become count in my Backlinks?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sourav60 -
Value of no-follow links
I'm curious to understand roughly how much % of value a no-follow link has in building authority relative to a do-follow link? I understand that Google seems consistently and growingly focused on value - ie. is the link valuable in growing the business, irregardless of SEO - and perhaps therefore the no-follow / do-follow distinction is becoming a more unnecessary dichotomy. How does Google look at do-follow vs no-follow links? And how much weight now is really given to one compared to the other?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gavo0 -
GWT - Links to website - Are they accurate
Hi I am looking at GWT more and more and I starting not to believe the information within it. For example we had a link on XYZ.com say 6 months ago. This link as been removed no reference to our website, however it still showing on GWT inbound links. I have noticed quite a few sites which have no relevance to our site. Is anyone else finding the information wrong in WMT
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
Training Website Improvements...
Hi Folks, I'm in the process of going over our corporate website with a view to improving on-page optimisation, layout, design and user experience and I would like your feedback on what you think I should improve or change with respect to SEO. Some of my ideas include: Restructure Home Page to Better Show Our Services Possibly Add a Slider to the Home Page (I know engagement rates with these are generally low) Restructure the Course Pages Completely (https://purplegriffon.com/courses/itil-training/itil-foundation-training/itil-foundation) Restructure the Events Pages Completely (https://purplegriffon.com/event/2028/itil-foundation) Improve & Streamline the Booking Process AJAXIFY the Booking Process Improve Responsive Elements I'm also interested in conducting user testing before I go ahead and make any changes. What are your thoughts? What would you change? Thanks. Gaz
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PurpleGriffon0 -
Is it safe to link my websites together?
Hi Everyone, I have 10 websites which are all of good standing and related. My visitors would benefit of knowing about the other websites but I don't want to trigger a google penalty by linking them all together. Ideally I'd also like to pass on importance through the links as well. How would you proceed in this situation? Advice would be greatly appreciated, Peter.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RoyalBlueCoffee0 -
Unnatural Links Removal - are GWMT links enough?
Hi, When working on unnatural links penalty, is removing and disavowing links shown on the GWMT enough or should the list be broaden to include OSE and Majestic etc.? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Splitting one Website into 2 Different New Websites with 301 redirects, help?
Here's the deal. My website stbands.com does fairly well. The only issue it is facing a long term branding crisis. It sells custom products and sporting goods. We decided that we want to make a sporting goods website for the retail stuff and then a custom site only focusing on the custom stuff. One website transformed and broken into 2 new ones, with two new brand names. The way we are thinking about doing this is doing a lot of 301 redirects, but what do we do with the homepage (stbands.com) and what is the best practice to make sure we don't lose traffic to the categories, etc.? Which new website do we 301 the homepage to? It's rough because for some keywords we rank 3 or 4 times on the first page. Scary times, but something must be done for the long term. Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. We are set for a busy next few months 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hyrule0