The footprint you build on yourself

The footprint you build on yourself

A few sources this week on a slow-burn mistake: buying repeatedly from the same network.

— A Facebook group post: a marketer realized 12 of their edits traced back to four sites owned by one seller, all interlinking.
— An agency blog warns these networks share hosting, themes, and footers, so one penalty cascades across all your links at once.
— Also circulating: advice to ask sellers point-blank whether sites are co-owned, and to cap how many links you take from any single seller.

Editor's note: convenience is the trap. The same responsive seller becomes a single point of failure across your whole campaign. Diversify suppliers even when one is easy to work with.

Pick of the week: the group post mapping how four 'separate' sites turned out to be one network.