Connecting Two Websites Without Upsetting Google
-
I have a question that I think I know the answer to, but want to cover my bases.
We have a successful blog and are creating a second similar blog for a more specific type of reader. We want to backlink between content because it makes sense for the reader. Our fear is that we may come off spammy to Google by having so many backlinks.
Is there a way we are able to tell Google these two sites are related so they don't penalize either site for anything?
-
Thanks for your thoughtful response. As you point out, there are many different business models, and what might be best "general" practice, might not quite fit every model.
Moz Q&A is great for this type of discussion.
-
It depends on the topic. I normally agree with this sentiment, I have given the same advice often over the year. In this case it was something that made sense to do because the audience via social and email is a very different demographic than we had on the main blog. The second blog was not built for backlinks or any spammy purpose, which is why we wanted to clearly show the relationship to Google without getting flagged for trying to spam. The purpose for the links would only be for user experience and not for SEO, we are good making all those links nofollow links. Even if we did them all nofollow we just wanted to see if there was anything else that could be done to show the relationship between the two sites.
The second blog was started less than 2 months ago and already has 50k+ pageviews even without the help of the original blog. Not a single backlink during that time, mainly because we were protecting our assets. Thanks for your feedback and not holding back on this topic, I like that even if I may not like the advice given that we're all open to the truth here in the Moz community. I definitely agree with you here about doing this for the backlinks, there has to be a purpose to a second site. In this case there really was a purpose, and it was all audience driven. Cheers!
-
This is what I figured, but just wanted to see if there was something I was missing. I thought a remembered hearing about a way that was similar to cross-domain tracking where you were able to show the relationship between the two site clearly to Google. I kept going back to NoFollow links and trusting that Google is smart enough to see what's going on.
-
I think that it makes better sense for the reader and better sense for you, to put all of this stuff on the original blog.
The backlinks that any second blog will create will be worthless unless you have links into the second blog from third party websites. So, instead of building that second blog, just put all of that great content on the main blog and get the backlinks straight to the the site you are promoting.
Building a second blog just for backlinks is like trying to kill a rabbit with a ricochet. Just shoot the damn rabbit.
I don't think that Google is going to like this second blog very well if you are making it to manufacture backlinks for your first blog. Google was killing that stuff twenty years ago.
-
Hello Jeff,
Yeap, with Nofollow tags on that links.
Best luck!
GR.
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
-
Google Ranking
I'm working on a page for couple of months now and try to rank for very competitive keyword. I have reached position 12 and it's 97% optimized, the sites keeps going up and down between position 10 & 13. I already changed content a couple of times and already created a few links with the targeted anchor tags. However I'm scared if I create more links it will be penalized. What do you suggest? Should I create more links with the targeted anchor tags or should combine the keyword in anchor tags with other words? Loading time, title, descriptions, content everything perfect optimized.
Link Building | | bill3690 -
Backlinks coming from websites we've built - Good or bad?
Hi everyone, I'm just doing a backlink audit of our newly relaunched site and saw that we have about 9,000 backlinks. Unfortunately, we have neglected our own link building. About 8,000+ of these links are from the websites we have built - sitewide footer links. These are also exact match anchor texts i.e. website by Bambrick Media. Because of that, our referring domain is only at 200+. Is this bad practice? Should we keep these backlinks / keep doing this for future sites we build? We feel like our backlink profile, the above in particular, is affecting our rankings and traffic. We're not ranking very well for our keywords. Compared to our competitors who have a quarter or less of the backlinks we have, they're ranking better, have more organic keywords, and are getting more organic traffic. Thanks in advance.
Link Building | | nhhernandez0 -
Are paid links on your brand name considered bad by Google?
I've been intrigued recently by the penalty applied to a site we have just started working with. They were penalised back in summer last year as their previous link builder had built 60,000 links all with the same hard to get keyword anchor text....we're still sorting it out. My question now is that if the client pays for inclusion on some relevant sites, such as niche directories and those sites automatically produce 'follow' links, would the client be penalised if they link on their own company name? For example if they manufacture blue widgets and the anchor text on the link is 'ABC Manufacturing' rather than 'Blue Widgets' would Google see that as a reasonable link? I appreciate that if they linked back on the keyword anchor text 'Blue Widgets' it would be wrong but I'm seeking clarification on using the company name. Any thoughts?
Link Building | | aqueous0 -
Can I start SEO before finishing my website?
Hi, I'm new to SEO and websites. I'm slowly building a website at the moment. I was wondering if I could set up a blog at the domain name I will use for my final website and begin doing SEO. Eg. I set up a blog using a CMS like Squarespace and begin blogging at domain.com/blog (with links to the domain.com/blog from the domain.com home page) and inbound links point to the domain.com 'front page'. And then add the design of the 'front page' of the website using Squarespace at a later stage eg. domain.com. Is this a good idea? Will it work? I'm anxious to get started on SEO. Thanks!
Link Building | | doblstp0 -
Does registering with the paid Yahoo directory have any effect on your google rankings?
I am trying to get quality back-links and I know Yahoo is one adn as it is a directory is still ok post penguin but can anyone tell me whether it is worth it or does Google ignore the Yahoo links? Thanks
Link Building | | ebowdublin0 -
Charity / Donation - Website and SEO
I have a prospective client looking to do SEO- they are a charity and have a fixed one time budget. (The budget is surprisingly high) They are looking to have their site ranked for "charities in (our city)" and "dental charities" and any keyword variations. Adwords shows significant search volume and ranking difficulty is moderate per SEOmoz keyword difficulty tool. On page will be fairly simple and well handled, but am looking more towards the authority and link building. I am going to tackle 3 top quality directories, Yahoo, BOTW, and Business.com (as well as DMOZ but i've never had luck). But was wondering if there were any other nationally recognized sources that mozzers know about that would be a good place to start to get some links to the site. The organization is a clinic that provides free dental work to veterans. I have never handled SEO for a charity before, and my first instinct is that getting a link to the site will be much easier to get than if I ask them to give money to the foundation, so they would be glad to do it. Any other guidance would be appreciated. And I can give more details if necessary. Any other tips and insight would be appreciated. Thank you! Ian
Link Building | | itrogers0 -
How Does Google connect Owners of Several Sites?
let's say I own 20 sites, all non duplicate content and Google sees that some of them has linked to sites that they consider a "farm" or other violation. So they give penalties to those sites. What happens with the other sites and how can I keep sites the most independent? For ex: These are my questions... Will google follow no follow links to see that they are connected to the good sites and penalize them? If they are all part of google anaylitics with good and bad sites, will google attack them all? Will google look at the owner of all the sites and connect them that way/ I need to know the extent Google connect site owners for penalizing. please only answer with knowledge, and if you can supply specific links, that would be great too, thanks.
Link Building | | joemas990 -
Why isnt google picking up my backlinks?
Over the last 2 months, my company has had almost 10 articles placed on very established websites. When I search for my company's backlinks on Google Advance Search, its not picking them up. Why?
Link Building | | BYSM0