Are links from all pages in the footer of Site A to different pages of Site B considered black-hat?

Question

I own two sites which hold different content that is targeted to different target markets.

When Site B launched, I added links in the footer of Site A to different pages of Site B. Each page on Site A has a link in the footer to some random page on Site B.

Is this considered black hat? Can I get penalized for this? This was about a year and a half ago, would you recommend removing these now?

Answer 1

It's not black hat but I don't think those links would be considered quality links. Especially if Google is able to associate the two sites as having the same owners or otherwise collective interest. I wouldn't do anything at this point but if you ever notice a sudden drop in indexed pages or rankings for those sites that would be the first thing you look at changing.