Is it safe to cross-link my various domains to boost link popularity?

• What do you think about setting up various separate web sites and linking them back to my main site in order to build my link popularity?

Answer: As long as the sites are relevant to each other and you're only interlinking a small number of your own sites (4-5 max), you should be fine. We see sites do this all the time without penalty.

However, if you're crosslinking 100 sites and it's easy for search engines to see that you own all those sites, then you're asking for trouble. Also, if you've got a small number of interlinked sites, but you've got hundreds or thousands of links passing between them, that can also cause problems.

Finally, you should make sure that your sites complement each other in some way, rather than just offer content that's largely identical. If a search quality engineer did a hand review of your incoming links, would it look like there was a legitimate reason for your sites to be linked together, other than just to boost link popularity?

It is often easier and less time-consuming to build content that attracts links or find other people (such as industry contacts) who are willing to link to you from their sites, rather than building large numbers of your own sites to build link popularity.

Of course, what we're discussing here borders on a mininet strategy. And, if you plan to implement a true mininet, please be aware that is technically against the search engines' terms of service. That means that, technically, your site(s) can be banned for breaking the rules. So, if you proceed, be very careful.

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