Linking to External Site In Nav Bar

[Uinterview]

Hi, we are a celebrity site but also own a separate sports site with its own URL. We have a link to that site in our Nav bar. Are we being penalized by having that link?

thanks

[KaneJamison]

You shouldn't be penalized if these are simply sister sites that are linked together in the header. This is common practice with a number of media websites, for example:

• xojane.com nav links over to xovain.com
• msnbc.com runs footer links to nbcnews.com, today.com, cnbc.com, and breakingnews.com
• cnet.com runs footer links to cbsinteractive.com
• foxnews.com runs header links to 7 other properties
• etc.

To be conservative, I would suggest linking with the brand name of the other site - don't use a commercial anchor text. In other words, link to it as "brand name" or "brandname.com", but don't link to it as "sports news".

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi

No, it won't cause your organic traffic to go down. If it were me, I don't see a reason for it to be included in the top navigation because top navigation should only be utilized for pages directly on the site.

That's just my opinion though - I still like the idea of having a partners or sisters site page where you link out to other sites like this one. Or, having it as a dropdown list item in your navigation under "About Us" or something along those lines.

Let me know if this makes sense. Good luck!

[Uinterview]

thanks for the feedback. We have not received a Manual Action in Webmaster Tools about it, but I was wondering if may be the cause of our organic search traffic going down a lot. I feel like it is related to the rest of the site – just a sports version of what we are doing with celebrities.... do you see a reason to get rid of the nav bar link?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Erik

There a ton of reasons for getting a manual action - bad, thin, or duplicate content, spammy link building tactics, or more - if you have one, I suggest you see what type of manual action it is, and act accordingly.

Now, for your link in the navigation, there could be potential for that link to be considered spam, although I don't see it being super likely. The reason being, it will be recorded as coming from every page that the top navigation appears on your site, and it's not topically relevant to celebrity news.

What I would do instead is link to the site through content opportunities with branded anchor text, or developing a page that is dedicated to sister sites or company websites. Although you will have to be careful and not link to 100 websites or go overboard.

You also have to consider that another website linked to in your top navigation could potentially be a bad user experience as it is inconsistent.

Hope this all helps! Good luck!