Links between my money sites

Due to the nature of my business, I have several sites with similar topics. They have different IPs and are linked to the same GSC account. Some of these money sites are showing good rankings in Google search results (because of the quality backlinks). I am thinking of linking them to each other. This forum says this will result in a penalty, but my competitors are doing it frequently. With good rankings. Is it a stupid idea to consider linking to each other to get link juice from each MS? I know it is risky, but my competitors are doing it too, so it does not seem like a far-fetched logic. Would having multiple homepages and linking them to each other be a factor in getting penalized by Google? Isn't that possible enough?

gn1st said:

Due to the nature of my business, I have several sites with similar topics. They have different IPs and are linked to the same GSC account. Some of these money sites are showing good rankings in Google search results (because of the quality backlinks). I am thinking of linking them to each other. This forum says this will result in a penalty, but my competitors are doing it frequently. With good rankings. Is it a stupid idea to consider linking to each other to get link juice from each MS? I know it is risky, but my competitors are doing it too, so it does not seem like a far-fetched logic. Would having multiple homepages and linking them to each other be a factor in getting penalized by Google? Isn't that possible enough?

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It's not a bad idea to link your sites long as there are relevant articles worthy of linking to/with.

But the issue here is having them on the same GSC, this is a dead giveaway that you're trying to game the system yourself. Even when you don't intend interlinking your sites, I don't recommend lumping all your sites in the same GSC, especially when they're doing well. A manual review may result in all sites on the same GSC getting clapped.

Your competitors are interlinking, but you can't be 100% sure they own all the websites and more importantly, that they're all on the same GSC.


Just to be clear, I recommend linking from one site you own to another especially when there are relevant content worthy of linking to. But your case is slightly different since they're all on the same GSC. It'll have the same effect as having same IP; i.e bad neighborhood should anything go south.

not recommended...

Maybe your competitors are doing it because they\re in for the short term and they don't care they'll get caught (how long have your competitors been the same for, and how long have they been having the linkwheel for? If you can figure this out you can guesstimate whether or not they give a crap)...

It's also possible that your competitors are actual businesses (with brick and mortar offices and stuff) but they have multiple sites, so they're mentioning all of their sites on each one of their sites somewhere in the footer. Weirdly enough, I've seen stuff like this never get penalized, maybe google considers them unaware of what they're doing and lets them get away with it, or maybe google has a rule amongst their billions of retarded rules against this type of practice for real companies, you never know which trick google pulls out of their sleeve next (like, for example, lately they've started blacklisting the entire internet just because they're pissed that humans dare to use their domains and sites for whichever they want. The nerve on people to do with their sites whatever they want, how dare they!)

Anyway, the point is that just because your competitors are doing it you shouldn't do it either. Linkwheels are one of the most surefire ways of getting penalized, especially if you're going to link all sites in your network together. If you have 4 sites, for example, and link from site 1 to sites 2,3, and 4 and stop there you might get away with it.

But if you go 1-2-3-4-1... well, this is the perfect example of a punishable linkwheel and your days are numbered (for ALL sites in your network)

And like HenryObi said, interlinking all sites in a network when they're all in the same GSC account is especially bad, and it's not only about GSC. If your sites use GA or other google products that google can link to the same IP or google account (yours) can get you into troubles...

Personally, I'd not do it, but if you're desperate.... your call I guess

I would avoid doing this to new websites any websites with low authority/trust that hasn't been ranking at least for 1 year+,
There are many niches & micro niches dominated by similar pratices, i've done that for a bunch of websites and it worked well,
The thing is, it could raise a spam flag and could get you penalized, but trusted websites can handle that easily,

Just consider the overall website current stats, including the link profile, UX siganls, age, etc...
If you think your websites are good enough to be seen as legit, then you're good to go