I have 2 E-commerce sites - Can i cross link?
-
Good Morning Everyone,
I have 2 e-commerce websites that are similar and sell the same products.
The content (text/descriptions/titles) is different so the content is not duplicate.
SITE A has a ton of blog posts with highly relevant information and we frequently update the blog with posts about the types of products we carry and how it can help people in their daily lives...
SITE B has no blog posts, but the content on the blog from SITE A is extremely relevant and helpful to anyone using SITE B.
My question is, do you think it is frowned upon if i were to add links on SITE B that point to specific posts on SITE A...
For example, if you are browsing a category page on SITE B, i was thinking of adding links on the bottom that would say
"For More Information, Please Check Out These Posts on our Blog"
I think this would seriously help our browsers and potential customers get all of the information that they need, but what do you think Google would think about this cross-linking and if it violates their guidelines?
Thanks for any opinions and advice.
-
Yes correct, I was talking from a purely SEO perspective
-
Hey Alan,
Thanks for the input
I understand what you are saying but here is why i think it is beneficial:
For argument's sake, let's say both SITE A and SITE B sell Hammers...
Site A sells hammers of all kinds and Site A also has a blog full of useful and frequently updated content about all different types of hammers and how to use them and where to use them and how they can help people in certain situations etc...
Site B sells hammers of all kinds, but does not have all of the blog posts that contain the useful and helpful information that may help a consumer make their decision. We were thinking taking a category page from SITE B (for example, wooden handled hammers) and adding links to roughly 2-3 blog posts from SITE A that talk about Wooden Handled Hammers, specifically.
Wouldn't you agree that these links would help the user/consumer? While it may pass link juice, the main goal is to help get the helpful information in front of the consumer.
Thoughts?
-
no problem at all with google.
The only problem I see, sending link juice to SiteA from SiteB.
To the search engine its like following a sign saying elevator, going into a room and seeing another sign that says elevator and so on, until your in the elevator and no more signs to follow, they think well this must be it. If your page is about dogs, you don't want to link out from your page to another page about dogs. -
Thanks for the feedback guys - appreciate it
-
I think that as long as you no-follow the links so that Google doesn't think you are trying to gain benefit in this manner, then it should be fine. The links as you suggest, are towards the bottom of the page, and Google should see this - perhaps mention that the blog posts will open on a new site and keep the anchor text neutral.
"For More Information, Please Check Out These Posts on our Blog (__Opens up new site)"
-Andy
-
Hi Andy,
Thanks for your input -
The blogs posts originate on SITE A.
However, some visitors find us through SITE B and therefore we want to help those on SITE B get all of the relevant information that we have available (the blogs from SITE A).
So - anyone who comes to SITE B will now be able to find all of our relevant content that is on SITE A and it will help them learn more about our products and make a decision.
Make sense? Your thoughts on how this would look under the Google microscope?
Thanks
-
Think about how this would look to Google if they were to inspect the site under a microscope. Would they question why the blog posts are on site B and not posted on Site A? What is the reason for not posting them on Site A? Are you wanting to cross-link for no other purpose other than for the benefit of the site visitors?
-Andy
-
It's perfectly normal to link two sites together like this. It can be useful to site visitors, and it's also very common. The problem comes when you have dozens of websites cross-linking together in some sort of link network.
More information
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
-
Cross domain canonical for different branded sites
Hi everyone, We are working on 5 websites that offer the same products but are of different brands and locations. They are owned by the same company, but each run independently. On the sites, they have content such as privacy policies, terms and conditions and guides that are the same across all brands. Will publishing these be flagged as duplicate content by Google? If yes, is it recommended to add rel=canonical to all duplicate pages across all sites pointing to one of the five? We are just concerned that the 4 sites with duplicate content would be valued less than the canonical as a result of passed link equity. We are doing SEO optimisations for all and are trying to rank them well in SERPs. If a canonical is not the best solution here, what would be the best to do apart from completely rewriting content? Is it noindex tag or turning the texts into images and adding to PDFs? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | nhhernandez1 -
Why Can't Googlebot Fetch Its Own Map on Our Site?
I created a custom map using google maps creator and I embedded it on our site. However, when I ran the fetch and render through Search Console, it said it was blocked by our robots.txt file. I read in the Search Console Help section that: 'For resources blocked by robots.txt files that you don't own, reach out to the resource site owners and ask them to unblock those resources to Googlebot." I did not setup our robtos.txt file. However, I can't imagine it would be setup to block google from crawling a map. i will look into that, but before I go messing with it (since I'm not familiar with it) does google automatically block their maps from their own googlebot? Has anyone encountered this before? Here is what the robot.txt file says in Search Console: User-agent: * Allow: /maps/api/js? Allow: /maps/api/js/DirectionsService.Route Allow: /maps/api/js/DistanceMatrixService.GetDistanceMatrix Allow: /maps/api/js/ElevationService.GetElevationForLine Allow: /maps/api/js/GeocodeService.Search Allow: /maps/api/js/KmlOverlayService.GetFeature Allow: /maps/api/js/KmlOverlayService.GetOverlays Allow: /maps/api/js/LayersService.GetFeature Disallow: / Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Ruben
Technical SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
Are links still considered reciprocal if the link from one website is rel="nofollow" and the other isnt ?
Im working on a site that has some press coverage due in the next couple of days from quite a big site in the niche. The press outlet has requested that we link back to the content they post about us, they said the link can be rel="nofollow" if we'd prefer. Id really like to get the full benefit of the link back to our website, obviously if i did a straight link back to the 3rd party press site the links would be reciprocal and cancel each other out in terms of "link juice", but i was wandering if we make our link back to the 3rd party rel="nofollow" will we still get the full benefit of their link to us in terms of link juice ? ie. having the link back to them, but nofollow wouldn't been seen as a reciprocal link. ? (Obviously either way there is still benefit of having the link even if it reciprocal as it will send traffic to our site, but just no "link juice") Note - Ive used the phrase"Link Juice" for lack of a better term, any ideas on how else to refer to this ?
Technical SEO | | Sam-P1 -
Webmaster Tools Links To Your Site
I logged onto webmaster tools today for my site and the section 'Links to Your Site' is showing no data. Also if I search using link:babskibaby.com it only shows 1 link. My site had been showing 500+ links previously. Does anyone know why this is?
Technical SEO | | babski0 -
No crawl code for pages of helpful links vs. no follow code on each link?
Our college website has many "owners" who want pages of "helpful links" resulting in a large number of outbound links. If we add code to the pages to prevent them from being crawled, will that be just as effective as making every individual link no follow?
Technical SEO | | LAJN0 -
Go Daddy can anyone explain the point of their auction site
Hi i am very confused. I found out that go daddy was selling in2town.com and they are the owners of the domain name so i went ahead and bid for the domain name. i then won it and was told i would have to wait six days to use it and now i have received this email from them. This message is to notify you that the current registrant of in2town.com has renewed their domain name and we have ended the auction per the terms of the legal agreement (Universal Terms of Service) that you acknowledged at the time of bidding. If you have already paid for this domain name, you will automatically receive a refund within the next 6 days. We're sorry you did not win this domain. However, we have thousands of other great names available at Go Daddy Auctions. Visit our Web site to search for your next domain. If you have any questions, Customer Support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: – Email: auctions@godaddy.com
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-184886
– Phone: (480) 505-8892
– Online Support Sincerely,
Go Daddy Auctions Team0 -
How do I get rid of irrelevant back links pointing to missing pages on my site
Hi all, My site was hacked about a year ago and as a result I now have a ton of back links from irrelevant sites pointing to pages on my site that no longer exist. The followed back links section on the Competitive domain analysis tool shows about 3 pages worth of these horrible links. I have 2 questions: how bad is this for my site's SEO (which isn't good anyway, Page Rank 0) and how do I get rid of them? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks, Andy WkXz0
Technical SEO | | getzen560