So, how do search engines know if one person owns all of the sites that are cross-linked? The structure
of a set of cross-linked sites is the first clue.
Other factors that may help a search engine decide that all the sites are owned by the same person
are the IP address of the site and the WHOIS information. The IP address is unique to each different
web site. Two sites that are owned by the same company are usually hosted on the same server, and
so the IP address of those sites would be the same. And WHOIS information is the record of domain
ownership. You’re required to provide this information when you purchase a web site.
When sites owned by the same company or individual are cross-linked, search engines look very
closely to ensure that the sites are relevant to each other. If they are, then there are no issues with
the cross-linking. For sites that are not related, however, search engines look down upon the practice
of cross-linking and your site (or sites) could be penalized for search engine spamming.
It’s also likely to throw up a red flag when you’re cross-linking hundreds or even thousands of sites.
When this occurs, the only real configuration that makes sense is a link farm or set of link farms.
And search engines don’t like link farms at all. If you want to get your sites completely delisted
from the search engine, then set up and take part in a link farm. It will just be a matter of time
before your sites are bounced into oblivion.
So, cross-linking isn’t always a bad thing. There are times when it works nicely. And the main requirement
is that sites have something in common so that the links would have occurred naturally anyway.
Another thing that helps to keep cross-linking a legitimate linking strategy is for every site to have
unique content. If you’ve created a handful of different sites with exactly the same content on all of
them, search engines are going to take notice and your sites will be penalized.
As long as you’re using cross-linking in a legitimate way, there’s no reason you should avoid it completely.
But like all the other linking strategies, use it wrong and you’ll pay the price.
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