Anything to bear in mind when setting up a related 'family' of sites with linking between them?

[topnotch18]

We've spun out content from a single finance related news/analysis site (running for about 2 years) into several topic-specific sites on individual topics (markets, investment etc etc).  They're all on the same server, use the same CMS (using a multisite setup), and share largely the same codebase, though obviously with customisations for the site names, and we've made sure each has a distinct identity.

At the bottom of each page, we're linking to 'latest posts on the network', aggregating the 5 most recent posts from all the sites and displaying them in the footer.  We've obviously made sure the actual content is completely unique on each site though.

Just wondering if anyone has any tips about ensuring we don't dilute our SEO too much. and how to maximise our effectiveness?

[RyanKent]

Since your sites are on the server they will be recognized as a network of sites and the links will be devalued.

From a search engine's perspective, the value behind a link is when it represents an independent endorsement of your website. It is basically a "vote" for your site. When you link to your own site, the vote should not count.

Search engines will examine your site's content, code, IP address and other factors in an effort to determine if your site's links are independent in nature, or part of a network of sites as in your case. There is not a white hat means to create a network of sites on related financial topics as in your case. From a search engine's perspective, the desire is for you to make a single site and provide all your content at that location. They reward this action with increasing DA for your site. The idea of creating many micro sites is not ideal for SEs nor users, and the effect is to litter the internet with many small sites.

The SEO methods used on the blackhat side for micro sites is to scatter the sites across different IPs, change the coding and other efforts designed to manipulate search engines view of these sites. Some results are effective, others are not. Most people who are successful at performing this type of manipulation are only getting away with things for a period of time until they are caught. It's a shell game.

[EGOL]

We've spun out content from a single finance related news/analysis site (running for about 2 years) into several topic-specific sites on individual topics.  Anything to bear in mind when setting up a related 'family' of sites with linking between them?

Yes... the links between these sites will be nearly worthless.

[topnotch18]

Thanks guys - point taken on the fact that the links won't be worth a great deal - the actual intention with spinning out the sites was to serve quite distinct users, rather than to try anything black-hat, and obviously we'd expect the site value to decrease by at least the amount of any content moved off the site.  The topics are pretty distinct, so the feeling is that over time, they'll each be able to build up value in those distinct areas.

I guess the real question (and I could have phrased this better!) was whether there's anything else we should be particularly careful to avoid?  We're fine with engines realising that all the content is from the same source, and it's pretty well advertised all over the sites, but the last thing we want to do is take a big SEO hit beyond that initial one of just shifting a couple of posts around to have a few things on the other sites after launch?

[RyanKent]

There are only two concerns I would express from a search engine perspective:

1. Be sure not to perform any black techniques, intentionally or unintentionally, on any of the sites. Your sites are related and a penalty may affect multiple sites.

2. Be aware of any content which may be duplicated between your sites.

[topnotch18]

Thanks Ryan - that's great to know.  We'll definitely bear both of those in mind!