One client, one b2b site and one b2c site - linking relationship

[Gareth_Cartman]

I have a client that has 2 websites in a particular industry. The first website concentrates on advertising services and products to other organisations/companies but does not sell anything online. The second website is an ecommerce site with many products from the same industry and is more a b2c operation.

Would it be considered ok to add maybe 5 footer links from one to the other and vice versa?

considering that they are footer links and will ultimately increase total links pointing to both site exponentially.

Both sites are hosted in the same location.

[Thos003]

Search engines understand footer links and therefore the total value of a footer link is greatly diminished. Per a Bing rep, if a footer link exists and is relevant then the value is 1 link from that site, not 10,000. So I don't believe you will get as big of a bump as you might believe.

However, I do believe that cross linking your domains is not a bad practice. We host our blog on a separate site and link back and forth. It only seems to help us and not hurt us.

But you do run a risk of looking manipulative and therefore being penalized. I would suggest testing one link in the footer. See if it gives you a bump or gets penalized. If you get a bump, keep it. If you get dinged. Get rid of it.