SEO Question: What is Cross Linking? Can it work as an SEO Strategy?

I keep reading about cross linking, but different sites define the term differently. What is cross linking & is it important?

Deeho Says:

Good question! Cross linking is not a particularly common SEO term. We tend to use either ‘internal linking’ or ‘outbound linking’ rather than cross linking.

Cross linking is an ambiguous term and unless it’s used in context such as; “should I cross link my web pages?” or “Should I cross link my three websites?” it has little real meaning.

Internal Linking

It’s important that you use internal linking to link to related content contextually from page to page of your site in addition to your main navigation.

While these might be referred to as ‘cross links’, they are internal web links.

Linking Your Websites

If you have three websites that don’t conflict with each other, say; car sales, car parts and car maintenance, you could link these together successfully.

If however you have websites that compete with each other for the same keywords, products or services, you run the risk (assuming that Google hasn’t already established a link between your sites) that you might see all your sites penalised in SERPs.

If you do have websites that compete for the same or similar terms, you are playing with fire from a Google point of view. They dislike this practice and believe that you should only have one website covering each niche.

More Frequently Asked SEO Questions

Additional Reading:

What is SEO?