Is There Any Risk In Link Wheels?

[Staccs]

I've been doing some reading on link wheels and it seems there are some posts on other forums saying that link wheels no longer work, and could raise flags with Google as spam.

Is this true? Do I have anything yo worry about?

I was planning on using this "structure"

 

[Rexibit]

I've been doing some reading on link wheels and it seems there are some posts on other forums saying that link wheels no longer work, and could raise flags with Google as spam.

The key phrase in that is, "there are some posts on other forums saying...".

While there are some decent practices on Warrior Forum or Digital Point, it's often regurgitated hype that a GURU said in order to sell one of their products.

In short - don't believe everything you read. Hell, don't believe what I'm telling you right now. As many will say - don't read, test. You don't know until you do.

The search engines change their algorithms up all the time. What works today may not work tomorrow.

Is this true?

Often not.

Do I have anything yo worry about?

You always have stuff to worry about when you are manipulating a website's authority on the web.

I was planning on using this "structure"

I'm fairly certain you didn't draw that process diagram/flow chart, so I'll assume you pulled it off a GURU's site that pulled it from someone here and put it there.

There are many ways to do link wheels. What you should really focus on is the concept behind it's workings - not the structure itself. Otherwise, you won't know if it's working for you or not.

Linkwheels serve one purpose, to launder shady links and pass their authority on to your money site. Nothing more, nothing less.

What you have there is someone going one step out from the traditional linkwheel and giving the majority of authority to an article. While this isn't a bad model, you do water down the authority that passes to your money site.

Why you ask? Well, article directories have anywhere between 30-100+ links on a page. You are building up all your authority to their site, boosting their directory's authority and the 100+ links on the page, and your money site is getting a fraction of the authority it could.

You might consider substituting that article for a splog you own so you control which links on that page are receiving the authority from the laundering of the links.

 

[dchuk]

rex knocked it out of the park once again. Most of the diagrams are ridiculous and unneccessary, they're only useful for getting an idea of how the structure is laid out. People who dream up these crazy interlinking structures are just turning gears and not doing anything.

Yes, web 2.0 links/linkwheels work. And I'm not saying that because I offer a service. They really do work, and there a million variations of the same basic strategy.

All you're doing is leveraging authority domains and producing in content backlinks on properties that are safe to spam to hell because they aren't your money site.

 

[Staccs]

You're right, I didn't draw that, one of the first results when I searched what are linkwheels.

Thanks again guys, much appreciated.

 

[jake321]

Howie's 'conversation domination' from a few years ago replaced his prior strategy of buying bunches of domains, with web 2.0 properties, it looked a lot like your diagram.

The smart guys at seoMoz seem certain that the classic link wheel has a limited future (there's free info on their blog, like whiteboard friday videos), they report perhaps an example of how the search engines might be catching onto the game, the google spam guy Matt Cutts looking up a site mentioned at a seminar on his laptop and reported that 998 out of 1000 links to the site were not being credited due to looking spammy.

 

[ChinaSearchAds]

Linkwheels serve one purpose, to launder shady links and pass their authority on to your money site. Nothing more, nothing less.

That's been a question I've been meaning to ask but was too scared of looking like an idiot. I really don't know why I worry about that, it's all done for me.

 

[Rexibit]

The smart guys at seoMoz seem certain that the classic link wheel has a limited future (there's free info on their blog, like whiteboard friday videos), they report perhaps an example of how the search engines might be catching onto the game, the google spam guy Matt Cutts looking up a site mentioned at a seminar on his laptop and reported that 998 out of 1000 links to the site were not being credited due to looking spammy.

No one strategy will work indefinitely. That's why constant testing is needed to catch onto a trend before it has passed you by.

Now, as far as Matt Cutts is concerned, please stop taking a single person's word for it. Look at where that information came from. He's paid by Google to be their spokesperson. Of course he's going to push something to make it look like a strategy that manipulates a website's authority isn't working. Especially since all the little "hobbiests" at WaFo and DP hang on whatever he says as the gospel.

Link Wheels will be around for a long time. It's all in how you work them. Automation will never go away.

Google's putting more and more emphasis on ranking websites based on how "legit" their time and effort is spent in reaching out to their customers. So aside from links showing up naturally on other sites and them being discussed on social media, there's not much else right now that they can do to see if a website is legitimate. Since all of that is insanely time consuming, automation will be necessary to make it worth people's time to optimize their websites, especially for small businesses or startups.

It's always going to come down to one thing in SEO: how natural your link building looks. Don't fuss over a strategy and whether it works or not. If your link building looks more real than the other guy's in your niche, you'll come out on top.