+5 votes
by (1.7k points)
I have multiple clients in the travel industry and they all actually do business with each other. What's the safest way to have their websites link to each other while still passing on SEO value? I set up Press and Partnership pages already which have nofollow links to each other, but have recently started testing out contextual dofollow links in blogs. For example, there's a blog about the tour provider on the hotel's website with dofollow links. At what point is this considered a PBN in Google's eyes? Or am I just playing it way too cautiously?  
I have multiple clients in the travel industry and they all actually do business with each other.

6 Answers

+4 votes
by (1.9k points)
Using PBN for more quantity will hit the results bad. I have a question multiple clients in same niche , they are their own website competitors?  
by (1.9k points)
0 votes
by (1.8k points)
If they ever write guest blogs/guest posts, or you write them for them, a safe way to promote each client and their SEO would be to link to their guest posts from their other guest posts. That would help with tiered link building too. Win-win. I would be a little hesitant to do circular linking on a big scale. A couple clients linking to each other from blog articles (not reciprocal URL links) would be one thing, but if you've got 10 clients all linking to each other, especially if their sites aren't very big, I would be worried about that. Especially if they all get penalized and you're down 10 clients.  
+1 vote
by (1.2k points)
I THINK, and I would invite anyone who has more knowledge than me to disagree, that if you focus on highly valuable content, then mix your linking with high value, highly ranked industry content, then include 1 client link, you would be ok. As long as that client link is helpful, that would just add to the piece. For instance: 17 tips on traveling to Belize 2500 words link to Belize wikipedia page link to govt "tips for tourists" page link to CDC "recommended vaccines" page link to TripAdvisor "10 best restaurants in Belize" link to client (enter tips here) plus 5 more links This is of course generalized. You would probably want more than 10 links, etc. Another tactic might be to get your posts up, maybe 2 at a time, then salt your client links in later as updates. I like to put up a post a bit raw, then hit it every week with updates adding images, more text, more links, all of which I had when I originally posted it, just to get more fresh content kicks. Would welcome feedback.  
+4 votes
by (260 points)
Be cautious about the cyclic linking structure or reciprocal links between sites. One way link building is always suggested. Meanwhile about PBN, as they must be on different IPs, I believe there is no issue. The best approach is linked A -> Link B -> Link C -> but Never Link X to Link A. And ONLY one link from one site to another. Make it as general and the simplest as you can. +1 @repudiation
+1 vote
by (4.1k points)
I don’t think google will act against linking within same niche as long as they are relevant. If google act against this, they are killing natural links
+2 votes
by (4.1k points)
Linking to a tour provider especially when they are business partners should be absolutely fine. Why should google consider this wrong?  
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