I have crosslinked 20 sites and I thought I have been penalized for this, asked this question and some experienced members told me maybe that crosslinking may not necessarily be the reason.The sites are on same host, different C class IP and every site in linked to each other.Each site targets long tail kewords.Site 1 - BMW Used Cars - and my areaSite 2 - WW Used Cars - and my areaAnd so on...When I crosslinked them (in the sidebar), I did it for the users; instead of repeating the terms used cars and my location over and over (since my users are targeted) I just crosslinked them using the brand: BMW, WW.Targeting locally, my niches are not overly competitive, so I did not need to many external links to rank on various positions on the 1st page.I'm thinking that when I chose to link using only the brand, google might have thought I wanted to actually rank for BBW and WW, hence the drop in my targeted local traffic.Could this be?I now have no-followed the links and I am noticing a slight recovery, but if it's not a interlinking penalty it would be a shame not to benefit from my links. 
Could crosslinking using very general anchor texts be a reason for a drop in rankings?
seo;keywords