Google's view of Crosslink from Subdomains

[sparky]

If you all can remember a couple years back when the SEO world was rocked when a person found a loop hole in Google's algorithm. This very intelligent person created a script that when the Google bot was recognized, the script would go out and make an infinite number of subdomains with relevant content and links pointing back to the main domain. As the Googlebot always has done, it followed the links and counted links from a subdomain as a IBL to the main domain. Hence this one persons domain had millions of IBLs. Google's official reply to this was "a bad data push" and they had adjusted their algorithm to fix this issue and the spammy sites were being removed automatically where as several members of the SEO world observed that the spammy sites were not being removed automatically, but were being removed by hand. Is anybody up to speed on what is Google's stand on subdomains crosslinking to the main domain? Does it still count as an IBL? Is this an okay thing to do or stray away from it?
No I am not asking if the flaw is still in the algorithm. I am just asking if crosslinking between subdomains and domains is okay in Google's eyes.

[wige]

From my observations it is allowable, to a certain extent. Google still treats subdomains as seperate sites, and there is no reason to expect links from one subdomain to another would not occur naturally. For example, two sites may be hosted on the same server and they may only have subdomains. They are not related, but have links to one another. They wouldn't be penalized for this.

As with any algorithm, Google's system is all about the numbers, trying to predict possible exploits and devalue them. In this case, if you have more links between subdomains than to other external sources, for example, it might be seen as spam, and those links may be discounted.

[sparky]

Saying all hackers are computer criminals is like saying all automotive engineers are car thieves

I love that statement

Thanks for your quick reply. I have been trying to follow up on this and everyone has a different perception of it. Yours makes the most sense. I agree with "if you have more links from the sub-domains then other sites".

Thanks

[jtracking]

i dont think there would be a problem unless you made a problem, namely did something that was obviously and blatantly deceptive but if you have a reason, and I mean a reason that is good for your visitors/members then by all means link them up but I wouldn't link a hosting site to a maid service site on or off the same domain if I was paid too.

Not that you're content is about hosting or maids but you get what I mean!

[DoneInStyle]

I don't think these sorts of links hurt, but I don't know how much they help either. Links from domains on the same IP block are valued less since Google expects that people will do this type of thing.

[pauliii]

I tried this technique with subdomains. Rather than put a info about many products on the same page, I wanted to put each product on its own subdomain. Thus each product would have its own "Home page". The links to the other subdomains on each home page would be nice plus.

That was about two years ago. My original Home page is ranked well, but the subdomains haven ever achieved any real presence in rankings. Further, the links between subdomains so not show up in Google link: search.

I've also tried it with multiple registed domains, all running off the same ip address. But these have not fared any better ithe Google picking up cross links. See
Mutual Funds, Stocks, ETFs - Exchange Traded Funds
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[Skywoolf]

This could explain a problem I have.

I have a reseller account and I build websites within my account for customers so I have about 20 sites on the same server using the same IP address.

Those that are compatible link to each other just the same as I swap links or banners with sites elsewhere.

None of these links show up as incoming links.

Does this mean I have to pay for multiple servers or IP address for any links between sites I build for customers to be valid?

[modrewrite]

My site has domains:

Apache Web Server Blog - htaccess tutorials, mod_rewrite examples, and Web development, Research, Experiments
Index of / (css, images, code, pdfs)
Index of / (mp3's, mp4's, flash, movies)
FeedBurner (actually a CNAME for the feedburner mybrand feature)
Wireshark: What's on your network? (a mirror of wireshark.org)
cURL and libcurl (a mirror of curl.haxx.se)

I did a search in google and yahoo for site:askapache.com to see what their indexes had to say about this excellent topic. Both of them indexed all 5. I'm satisfied with that!

[Skywoolf]

My sites are all indexed but my page rank is low which I am assuming is something to do with the fact that all the incoming and outgoing links at the same IP address are ignored.

[jeffposaka]

In my experience, sites on the same server do not pass along link juice with the same strength as sites on different servers or data centers. I think they are discounted in some way.