If I have 20 domains, should I link them all together?
Posted on: January 25, 2015
A lot of SEO web masters are concern when it comes to the number of sites they can link together inside their own networks without looking “spammy”. It is important for web masters to make sure that they will be able to reach out to their targeted audience. However, if their links and pages become too shady, they might be penalise by Google.
Video Question
A related question was recently sent to Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s search spam team: “Should a customer with 20 domain names link it all together or not, and if he links it, should he add nofollow to the links not to pass PageRank?”
Highlights of the Video:
Matt Cutts had the following points emphasized:
- If the domain names are not at all related to each other, such as one domain name would be about medical malpractice, another would be for cheap casinos and the rest would be about other topics or keywords that are completely not related to each other, then there is no reason for one to link them altogether.
- Such irrelevant connections can appear to be pretty “spammy” and Matt Cutts mentioned he would strongly discourage anyone from linking these together.
- On the other hand, he also mentioned that if one customer has 20 domain names that are technically versions of his or her domain in different parts of the world (i.e. different countries) such as “google.za, google.fr, or google.de” then it does make having 20 or more domains a whole lot sensible to link together.
- He mentioned that as long as users would be able to find a good way to get to their targeted page or domain then search engines will be able to follow suit. There should always be a normal static HTML links so Google will be able to follow and that PageRank will also flow.
In order to get higher SERP (Search Engine Results Page) rankings, you should:
- When you link multiple domains together, they must be related. Example: Medicine website can link to health care website as they are somehow related.
- You can also link different country domains together. Example: Google.com.sg link to Google.com.my.
- Your links should not be misleading nor irrelevant to your main website as it does not make sense to link them together on Google point of view.
- You can also make use Google’s tools to inform Google that multiple domains are related.
