Linking Between Sites

[National-Homebuyers]

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all doing well.

If a company owns several different websites that are supposed to be different brands but are part of the same niche/sector is it OK to link between them? Or would this be seen as violation?

Thanks

[Daniel_Morgan]

Note of caution: I wouldn't put these links in the footer, sidebar or anywhere else which will mean the links would be present on every page of the site. A sudden rise in the quantity of sitewide links could set off alarm bells for search engines.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

If you only have a few sites, there is no harm in interlinking and this can actually help Google see relationships between company sites - this depends if you want them to. That said, I tend to nofollow them if they are different, in which case there is no problem at all.

Because links of this nature normally appear at the footer of a site, they would probably pass nothing in terms of page rank anyway.

Keep the links neutral - just the brand or URL, and you should be good to go. But tread carefully if the sites are too similar because then Google might start questioning why there are a number of sites that carry the same / similar information and why is it not all on one domain?

-Andy

[ClaytonJ]

Here is a blog post with the same question, or close.

http://moz.com/community/q/linking-between-your-own-websites-yay-or-nay

Hope it helps, ask if need any clarification.