Link Spamming or Not? Block Internal Search Results From Indexing?

[SEO-Team]

We are looking at providing our customers with the best experience when performing a site search for a product. Would it be bad SEO practice to have our internal search results show results for all 4 Brands linking to different domains? This would mean multiple outgoing links to other owned sites from the same IP.  Is it a best practice to block internal search results using robots.txt?

[RDK]

Your internal site search results do not get indexed...  it's the very process of indexing that allows you to do an internal site search.

If you have links going to websites that are also on the same C-block, you're OK if you only have a few links to those sites.  Google wants a great user experience, so give them one.  It's when your cross-linking begins to comprise a significant portion of your link inventory that you'll be in trouble.  If you want a ratio or percentage of how many links you can get away with, you'll have to throw on your tin-foil hat for an answer.  Again, because you're on the same C-block, I'd be careful, but not omit them completely because a few links to sister sites is perfectly reasonable if those sites are related (even if only because they're owned by the same entity).

Regarding the nofollow, that's a perfectly acceptable solution if you want to bulk up on your cross-linking for the user's benefit.  Kudos to your caution... you're dealing with an algorithm after all.

[SEO-Team]

Thanks for your response and share your advice.