Magnetic nanostructures of nickel embedded in gold were successfully fabricated by electrochemical deposition in porous alumina templates. Structural characterization of the samples confirmed the formation of pure phase, crystalline multi-segmented Au-Ni-Au nanowires. Magnetic characterization of the wires reveals that ferromagnetism arises as a result of Ni embedded in Au segments. An interesting behavior of coercivity was observed that showed a rapid decrease of coercivity for smaller Ni segments while a monotonic decrease was found for the larger segments. Finally, the saturation magnetization of the wires exhibited a slower increase for smaller Ni segments while a sharp increase was observed for larger Ni segments. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.