Sorry, I was gone for the weekend. I get back and my thread explodes, but cannot comment anymore .

What I meant by internal linking strategy is this...

Our competition has undertaken a strategy of creating many (from my last count 9) sites to artificially boost links. These sites are canned and have very limited and non-unique content. Just unique enough though I guess for a computer to think it is relevant. This whole network of sites dealing with Chicago, and Chicago real estate has a fairly strong grasp on the google "Chicago real estate" SERPs (#1,3,9), with the rest of the pages not too far behind. We have now acknowledged this strategy and have to beat them in their own game by creating our own network, but a lot less spam like. Our client is willing to go the distance with legitimate and useful sites. I guess my question is how to link these sites together without making them look like a network, just for better integrity. Also to make them boost each other but most importantly our main page.
Have any of you tried this?

Thanks

__________________
Charlie
Internet Engine

Chicago Real Estate

Hey Crush,

Yeah, that is an interesing group. They are also building sites in Las Vegas and in my market in Phoenix and Scottsdale.

They approached me with an offer to partner with me... They wanted $6000.00 per month to be their "partner" here.

I politely declined.

I guess they have some good drugs in Chicago...LOL

Jim

Which sites are "are canned and have very limited and non-unique content"? The results I see at 1 (chicago-real-estate), 3 (dreamtown) and 9 (Chicago.com) are very valid results.

Gosh Bob,

With all your interest in "cross-linking" I can't believe you think those sites are valid results.

Jim

Hey Jim,

Did the web designer contact you or did the realtor? This operation stinks, and is not worth the money.

__________________
Charlie
Internet Engine

Chicago Real Estate

Crush,

The owner of Dream Town and the web developer are partners in this endeavor.

Jim

Here is an example of a canned site. I'm not giving them free links. so copy and paste.

@http://www.chicago-real-estate.biz/
@http://www.las-vegas-homes.info/
These sites are exactly the same. They have just replaced Chicago with Las Vegas. It's funny that I use this ridiculous site as an example, because the Chicago site is #1 for "Chicago Real Estate" in google! There are more of these sites in Chicago with clones in other cities. Is this fair? Spam?

__________________
Charlie
Internet Engine

Chicago Real Estate

Fair question, but what I said was the content is unique enough. Just as yours is.

Chicago.com is a legit city portal with thousands of pages of content spanning a variety of topics related to Chicago. None of its' displayed backlinks are from the other two sites. It stands on its own merit.

The other two do have extensive crosslinking. No debate there. I have never debated the merits of many of these crosslinked sites in Google, just the possible (IMO, inherent) risk of garnering a majority of your links and anchor text from a crosslinked network.

If you get top results with a relevant site, good for the user. Crosslinking doesnt make for a site worthy of the label spam. My crosslinking issue is business related, as my point has always been that there are safer ways to get there than by crosslinking (and renting backlinks that provide less traffic than the what you would get spending the same money on PPC), so why risk it?

I liken it to poker. Dont bluff unless your willing to have it called.

For the record Jim, my only debate with you, Wayne and others has never been personal or the quality of your sites<snip>By Moderator</snip> but strictly the wisdom of risking your online presence with at least a questionable and highly debated practice.

crush, why would it be spam? Does the user find what he is looking for when he gets to the vegas or chicago site? Google first looks at it from that perspective.

However Yahoo may consider it duplicate content and ban it, unless they go through paid inclusion, in which case Yahoo would just set up a cloaked page.

Chicago.com is definately a legit site, all the others that are clearly part of that shady network are not. They found a loophole, and are exploiting it. I think google spam is anything that was designed for the sole purpose of increasing ratings. There method does not add anything special to the community, it just gets them to the top. When they have control of that many top google serps they should have some resposibilty to publish decent content.

__________________
Charlie
Internet Engine

Chicago Real Estate