Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks EGOL, Kevin and Alan - that last mention from EGOL is along the lines of what I am worried could happen because of the motivations behind the posts, which is to cite each other.

Their authority on the subjects where they intersect is legitimate - but these articles would be generated because of those intersections. If I didn't have a blue widget client then the red widget client would have little impetus to write a blog post that extols blue widgets. Even though there's nothing in the posts that isn't true and all clients are qualified authorities to be cited as described. It's just that the posts would be written because the SEO guy (me) sat down and said "how can these clients cite each other legitimately?" rather than red widget guy writing an article on blue widgets and then being lucky enough to have someone (me) who can put them in touch with a blue widget company to cite and be cited by.

They're all on different IP's so that should be okay.

I think I'm going to go ahead with this but I'll tread lightly as recommended. Thanks again, thumbs up for all!

Say you have for example three (in this case) clients, and:

• Client A sells red widgets
• Client B is a doctor
• Client C sellls blue widgets

With some research, you find that:

• Red widgets (A) can make the process of blue widget creation (C) even more effective.
• Red widgets (A) can protect you from harmful things that doctors (B) are qualified to recommend that you stay away from.
• Furthermore, there are things that doctors (B) recommend that you do in order to maximize the benefits of red widgets (A)
• Blue widgets (C) carry with them certain potential health risks, which according to doctors (B) can be minimized using the following means
• Sometimes blue widgets (C) can be used to effectively repair red widget (A) factories

...and so forth.

Sure you're really writing these articles to generate links and exchange authority, and frankly you started with "how can I find synergy between these clients?" rather than a with a great article subject that needed a citation which luckily happened to be another client, but the citations are legitimate and the clients are qualified to speak on the subjects where their expertise and interests overlap.

Would you consider going ahead with this? Does anyone have any experience doing it? I could see potential pitfalls if clients were to interact with each other, but keeping yourself as the intermediary might well work and overall it seems like a decent way to grab low-hanging fruit as they say. What do you guys think?

I'd echo the suggestion to start a new thread on this, we've all theorized about this and I've also heard it mentioned directly from an industry guru as a tactic he knew was being employed by some - and working. It would be great to have us all analyze and pick this apart to see how and why it's happening. In theory sites should be able to avoid being "hurt" by this kind of thing, just not helped, with the reason being that as we know, anyone could blast anyone else with bad links. But what is apparently happening is not simply these spammy links being discounted, but a penalty actively being imposed, which goes against what most of us have heard and believed until recently. Would love to see some of the great minds here take a crack at it.

-Dan