According to a study by Marketing Sherpa, 70 percent of all links that online search users click on are organic in nature, and not paid. That should reveal something about the power of natural links compared to paid links or online paid advertising. However, in their enthusiasm to create links that can boost the search engine rankings of a website, online marketers sometimes make the mistake of creating too many cross-links without purpose.

Google’s Distinguished Engineer, Matt Cutts, said in a video that online marketers should avoid cross-linking of multiple domains unless it adds real value for a reader. If your medical or dental practice has multiple website domains that are cross-linked for the sole purpose of achieving greater SEO benefits, the strategy can backfire, considering the hardening stance of Google and search engines in the last two years against such SEO practices.

At one point of time in the past, it was a popular trend among online marketers to cross-link a particular website with dozens of other related websites. However, most of such websites would be created solely for the purpose of outwitting the search engine crawlers to gain higher search engine rankings. However, Google and other search engines have now caught up with this trend, and may penalize websites that indulge in such practices.

Healthcare marketing online should consider the clear caveats issued by Google while executing their marketing strategies. Google’s Matt Cutts has clearly stated that if you own multiple domain names that you wish to link together with your primary website, you ought to have a genuine reason to be doing so. If not, the search engine may consider such cross-linking as a spamming exercise.

Cutts has said that multiple sites linked to each other may be accepted in a situation where a company has different websites for various countries where it conducts business. However, even in such a case, Cutts suggests that cross-linking should be done in a way that it does not come across as spamming activity. Healthcare practice website developers and SEO experts should keep this advice on cross-links in mind while creating marketing campaigns for medical or dental practices to achieve the best results.