The Link Wheel

[ph1470]

If you were to employ the link wheel strategy(image attached)how would one person possibly be able to feed fresh content to that many sites?

Correct me if wrong, but with at least three links per site pointing to other sites in the wheel that means you would have to have at least three pages of fresh content delivered to each site on a regular basis. Right?

I mean I understand the principle, but is it feasible?

If so, how?

[steve39]

Yes, it would be a lot of work. Actually, my biggest concern is that the loop is "closed" and should be detected by Google's algo without any problem at all. So all that effort could be down the drain at any time once they de-index the sites for participating in a blog farm linking scheme.

[emakina]

Originally Posted by steve39

Yes, it would be a lot of work. Actually, my biggest concern is that the loop is "closed" and should be detected by Google's algo without any problem at all. So all that effort could be down the drain at any time once they de-index the sites for participating in a blog farm linking scheme.

would google really deindex your site because you created a linkwheel?

[GeorgR.]

uhm..i dont think it's that easy. I just had some wheels made myself (and made some myself)...i haven't really heard anything negative about it.

For me this is really not BH or anything near "semi illegal"....i mean its pretty normal to interlink blogs.

ALso..if Google were to de-index "participating" sites: What about ANYONE makins a simple link-wheel and put a COMPETITOR's site in them - would google deindex THEM????

From that point of view..it takes me about 15 mins to make a simple link wheel with 6 web2.0 properties - i COULD let "deindex" a whole bunch of competing sites. Just as a side note.

From that point of view i wouldnt believe that Google would deindex - UNLESS its somehow made "big style" linkfarming with 1000s of slave-blogs...stuff like that.

I would have to ask some SEO cracks in regards to this.

[ph1470]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

uhm..i dont think it's that easy. I just had some wheels made myself (and made some myself)...i haven't really heard anything negative about it.

For me this is really not BH or anything near "semi illegal"....i mean its pretty normal to interlink blogs.

ALso..if Google were to de-index "participating" sites: What about ANYONE makins a simple link-wheel and put a COMPETITOR's site in them - would google deindex THEM????

From that point of view..it takes me about 15 mins to make a simple link wheel with 6 web2.0 properties - i COULD let "deindex" a whole bunch of competing sites. Just as a side note.

From that point of view i wouldnt believe that Google would deindex - UNLESS its somehow made "big style" linkfarming with 1000s of slave-blogs...stuff like that.

I would have to ask some SEO cracks in regards to this.

Ya see I do my wheels pretty much the same as you. I only use between six and eight web 2.0 properties. I link them together and to the main site and then do article submissions and bookmarking to build the links.

It's manageable and it works well for the keywords I am competing for. I assume if I went for more competitive keywords I would then need a bigger wheel with a more complex link structure.

[steve39]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

uhm..i dont think it's that easy. I just had some wheels made myself (and made some myself)...i haven't really heard anything negative about it.

For me this is really not BH or anything near "semi illegal"....i mean its pretty normal to interlink blogs.

ALso..if Google were to de-index "participating" sites: What about ANYONE makins a simple link-wheel and put a COMPETITOR's site in them - would google deindex THEM????

From that point of view..it takes me about 15 mins to make a simple link wheel with 6 web2.0 properties - i COULD let "deindex" a whole bunch of competing sites. Just as a side note.

From that point of view i wouldnt believe that Google would deindex - UNLESS its somehow made "big style" linkfarming with 1000s of slave-blogs...stuff like that.

I would have to ask some SEO cracks in regards to this.

Of course, Google will never punish a site because of inbound links, that's why the sites would have to also be linking back out to the other blogs in the wheel to really be considered part of it. If you pointed a linkwheel at a competitor and they had no links back to the wheel, not much would happen.

You have to remember that the linkwheel is very, very basic. There are blog farms out there that do much more sophisticated linking and use mathematical models such as Hamiltonian paths and adjacency matrices. Even these guys are worried about Google perceiving them as a greedy network.

So, when it comes to the linkwheel, perhaps it's just that it's too small for Google to bother with.

[ph1470]

It sometimes seems like we complicate this very simple issue.

[M0n3yMan]

Link wheels could be detected by google,
BUT google will not de-index you at worst they will just ignore/devalue those links if found.

The better way would be to use a different linking structure than a link wheel if your worried about google for examle:

creat 6-10 or how many web 2.0 pages blogs you like all pointing back to your money/main website but do not interlink any pages at all and do not link back from your money/main site to the web 2/blogs,
Then build link wheels to each of the web 2 sites you created and also social bookmark blog comment article submit for backlinks to each blog wheel and each web2/blog site.

sure this is alot of work but this is for more competitive terms and if you use certain tools like article spinners then you can knock out link wheels pretty quickly.

do one of these once a week and you can start to rank for some competitive keywords and if google detects one or two link wheels then you will have 4-6 or how ever many left.

[seo_genius]

I seriously doubt Google will penalize you if you do it rightly. I have my own linkwheel pattern and I normally don't have it in a situation that it becomes spotable because i build several other quality links to both the main sites and the wheel after they might have rested a few days.
I want to assume the number of properties involved in a linkwheel is significantly small for Google to pick a hint.

[Clyde Dennis]

Originally Posted by ph1470

It sometimes seems like we complicate this very simple issue.

"Hamiltonian paths and adjacency matrices"... Really?

I'm certainly no expert here but sometimes I'm not sure we're not way over thinking and over complicating things. The "we" being us online marketers.

Is it, or does it really need to be so complicated?

Simple works folks! I'm just sayin...

[Intrepreneur]

A link wheel is a link wheel the content you provide is the content you priovide. I really can't see Google penailisng you for trying to get your valuable content read by needy readers.

Get your content right and you'll survive the SEO battle, as long as you aren't BlueFartting the whole way there.

[metafever]

FYI

LinkWheel's are probably one of the single best strategies a good SEO can do.

There is several advanced tricks you can do to minimize your detection such as blending in your own high PR blogs and not linking in a straight loop.

I attached a PDF I just did called Link Wheels Explained. (no opt in)

[Gill A Taylor]

I used a simple 6 website link wheel 2 days ago for a 4 word key phrase. It definitely pushed my article up the serps. Sitting on no3 in Google.

The keyword has 1300 monthly searches according to adwords keyword tool, 3 600 000 results without "" and 125 000 search results with ""

Now a question: how big a link wheel is needed to go after a 10 000 search/month keyword? I know it depends on the competition. I'm just wondering what I keyword phrases I could target realistically.

[Designerplus]

The quality of the links in the wheel make a huge difference as well. If you can set up a quality wheel you should see even bigger jumps. Competition is more important than number of monthly searches. You can have keywords with few monthly searches with huge comp and others with no comp. If there is a PR6 site sitting on your keywords and continuing to target them you'll probably never be number one regardless of the search volume.

[Gill A Taylor]

OK, i know that squidoo, blogger, vox ext have high pr right. but when you create say a lens in squidoo, linking back to your hub with the correct anchor text, what kind off link juice are we talking about here. i don't think that you're getting a full pr6, or whatever squidoo pr is.

And another thing, I'm not seeing my own website entry, which is a rewrite of my ezine article, anywhere near the ezine one. My link wheel has 2 hubs, my ezine and my own blog entry. When will my own blog entry start rising. My wheel is almost 2 days old.

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by Gill A Taylor

I used a simple 6 website link wheel 2 days ago for a 4 word key phrase. It definitely pushed my article up the serps. Sitting on no3 in Google.

The keyword has 1300 monthly searches according to adwords keyword tool, 3 600 000 results without "" and 125 000 search results with ""

Now a question: how big a link wheel is needed to go after a 10 000 search/month keyword? I know it depends on the competition. I'm just wondering what I keyword phrases I could target realistically.

I think you need to look at allintitle:keyword for more accurate competition...

You can find more information about Article marketing and learn more about how to rank your article without backlinks.

Originally Posted by Gill A Taylor

OK, i know that squidoo, blogger, vox ext have high pr right. but when you create say a lens in squidoo, linking back to your hub with the correct anchor text, what kind off link juice are we talking about here. i don't think that you're getting a full pr6, or whatever squidoo pr is.

And another thing, I'm not seeing my own website entry, which is a rewrite of my ezine article, anywhere near the ezine one. My link wheel has 2 hubs, my ezine and my own blog entry. When will my own blog entry start rising. My wheel is almost 2 days old.

High PR domain is very powerful, even the inner page without page rank link to you will give you great link power!

You need more hubs with your link wheel, build different keyword focused article to each link wheel, tap into broader traffic instead of just focus on 1 keyword.

It takes at least 2 weeks to rank properly for most link wheel properties, however, it all depends on the competition and if the keyword focused article already exists on your web 2.0 property.

For instance, you try to rank for keyword1 on squidoo, however squidoo already has an article on that topic ranking for keyword1, it will be a bit difficult and take more time to rank well using squidoo, you should move on to other properties!

- Kok Choon

[Gill A Taylor]

Thanks a bunch guy.

I see my article has moved to 2nd place for the keyword search, not full article title, on google serp. The guy on no1 has the keyword in his url and his site is currently under construction.

When I search with "" my article comes up in 5 spots on Google page1, two of them are my sites and the rest is competition that got it through Unique Article Wizard distribution.

My keyword properties:
searches (google keyword) = 1300/month (is this to low?)
search results with "" = 124 000 (probably a little high right?)
search results without "" = 4 040 000 (I Know this is ok)
allintiltle = 1160 (is this to high?)

1. Are you saying that this happened due to the on-page seo only and that the linkwheel hasn't kicked in yet?

2. I'm not seeing much traffic from this article, less then 30 views and 2 ct in 10 days from ezine. Is this really the way to go in article marketing?

3. How will my linkwheel, 6 web2.0 sites going to 2 hubs (ezine and my own blog), compete against say 30 Angela backlinks to my ezine article?

[affiliated survivor]

I have my doubts about this whole Link wheel idea. Besides the question if you get penalized or your links being worth less, what´s the advantage of a link wheel? Wouldn´t I get more link juice when linking directly to my site. People will say by using one link to link to another part of the wheel, this part´s link to my site gets worth more. But it can´t be much because of only one link. I think you lose link juice that way. Why not use both links for your site and in addition there will be no worries about Google detecting your wheel or not?

[GIahGroup]

whoa me personally I would be looking at another KW to chase based on those numbers.

1160 AiT tells me that alot of other SEO people are chasing the same KW so its competitive and most probably will be hard to break into the top.

I could understand if you were getting 20K + searches / mth but 1300 / mth is very low, remember 30% of those 1300 queries will be the other SEO guys and marketers checking SERPS.

The other thing to consider is what are the top 'broad phrase' listings as this is how most of your potential customers will search, if you have some autority sites listed then do more research on another phrase to chase.

Of course these are not hard and fast rules, if you're selling high priced items like real estate then its a different story.

Good luck.

As fo link wheels, these all seem to be the SEO Flavour of the moment, truth is they work but you can't duplicate the same patterns repeatedly as Google love uncovering SEO trends divised to game the SERPS rankings and alter their algo to nullify it.

Think 'end user experience' and Google will reward you!

Originally Posted by Gill A Taylor

Thanks a bunch guy.


My keyword properties:
searches (google keyword) = 1300/month (is this to low?)
search results with "" = 124 000 (probably a little high right?)
search results without "" = 4 040 000 (I Know this is ok)
allintiltle = 1160 (is this to high?)

1. Are you saying that this happened due to the on-page seo only and that the linkwheel hasn't kicked in yet?

2. I'm not seeing much traffic from this article, less then 30 views and 2 ct in 10 days from ezine. Is this really the way to go in article marketing?

3. How will my linkwheel, 6 web2.0 sites going to 2 hubs (ezine and my own blog), compete against say 30 Angela backlinks to my ezine article?

[4morereferrals]

Yup ... they suck and you should avoid them like the plague!

Google can spot em a mile away ... hell they have em nailed before the last link in the wheel has been done. The google spam team are notorious Linkwheel Hunter Killers!

Originally Posted by affiliated survivor

I have my doubts about this whole Link wheel idea. Besides the question if you get penalized or your links being worth less, what´s the advantage of a link wheel? Wouldn´t I get more link juice when linking directly to my site. People will say by using one link to link to another part of the wheel, this part´s link to my site gets worth more. But it can´t be much because of only one link. I think you lose link juice that way. Why not use both links for your site and in addition there will be no worries about Google detecting your wheel or not?

[Dirky47]

There will always be a link web on the internet. They always link to one another in order to help each other depending on their niche.

[Fernando Veloso]

Originally Posted by steve39

Yes, it would be a lot of work. Actually, my biggest concern is that the loop is "closed" and should be detected by Google's algo without any problem at all. So all that effort could be down the drain at any time once they de-index the sites for participating in a blog farm linking scheme.

Originally Posted by emakina

would google really deindex your site because you created a linkwheel?

No.

Otherwise I'll create a Linkwheel with my competitors site.

[lonniewa2]

Originally Posted by Gill A Taylor

I used a simple 6 website link wheel 2 days ago for a 4 word key phrase. It definitely pushed my article up the serps. Sitting on no3 in Google.

The keyword has 1300 monthly searches according to adwords keyword tool, 3 600 000 results without "" and 125 000 search results with ""

Now a question: how big a link wheel is needed to go after a 10 000 search/month keyword? I know it depends on the competition. I'm just wondering what I keyword phrases I could target realistically.

Just wondering how many articles do you guys post on each web 2.0 property?

[tekblogger]

Originally Posted by lonniewa2

Just wondering how many articles do you guys post on each web 2.0 property?

I'm also curious about this one. My first linkwheel is being built now and I'm looking forward to see the results.

[askloz]

It's not as difficult as it seems.

First, get a article rewritter.
Second, go to elance and hire a desktop app programmer, get him to make:

hubpage submitter
squidoo page submitter
social bookmarking submitter
article submitter
blog submitter

etc, etc

use the rewritten articles, point, click and send, job done.

[NaturalStyle]

Regarding Google detecting linkwheels: I remember an interview with Matt Curtis where he says "we subtract 10-15% of link juice from every link, so people can not push up the link juice be generating circles"
Makes sense. Nevertheless should a properly interlinked wheel get roughly twice the link juice per spike compared to the spike without using interlinking of the properties on the wheel.
The 10-15% lead to the conclusion that more than 6-10 sites will not build up the link juice flowing between the properties on the wheel.

[askloz]

That's why it's important to create a break in between linking so it doesn't look like a circle