I have links to my main sites in my network in my footer. I was told this was risky. Is it risky?

[Guest]

This post is deleted!

[EGOL]

Q:  Why do you have those links there?

A: To manipulate the search engines.

The real problem is that footer links are the most common places where manipulative links are placed. And if they have optimized keyword anchor text that really is a sign of manipulation.

Those links paint a big target on your butt.

[Dan-Petrovic]

If you have a legitimate reason for linking you should be fine, too many sites do it (big news networks too)... however after looking at your sites I am not sure if this is what Google wants. My gut feeling tells me that they would prefer to see this as one site. I understand why you split them up into different domains.

To be safe I would use branded links rather than using search terms in anchor text. For example: http://www.tummytuckguide.com/ could be Tummy Tuck Guide not Tummy Tuck although it's hard to say if Google treats any of them as "brands".

[gfiorelli1]

Footer links are discounted because, as Egol wrote, footer is a classical place where to put spammy "credits" links.

If I was you i would make better that internal pages, for instance giving a short but needed description to the sites of your "newtwork". In fact, surely because of my ignorance about the topic, I cannot see the difference existing between many of those sites, giving to me the sensation they were created simply because you try to dominate the SERPs with exact matching domain names.

More over, if you put your network links in the footer of a the sites... that can be dangerous for real, because you are practically declaring the existence of a web ring/link wheel, something that can make you sites go directly to the hell of ban.