What is a Link Wheel?
A link wheel is snake oil SEO. Confusing hogwash that feigns to be the magic bullet.
A link wheel is, for example when you have 6 sites: A B C D E F. If A is your main site, then B, C, D, E, F link to A reciprocally. Then B links to C, C links to D, D links to E, E links to F, and F links to B completing the wheel. This is the basic variant.
A link wheel is not a killer SEO tactic, at least not anymore. Check the dates on the posts that mention it: 2006, 2005, 2007. SEO, or at least “killer” SEO tactics, are outdated fast. Proper SEO:
- Content is king
- Make your content accessible
- Get backlinks
never changed.
Table of Contents
A Guide to Understanding Link Wheels
The Internet and Internet usage has grown exponentially over the last two decades. New content is published daily to the Internet from a variety of individuals and businesses. Many of the websites published to the Internet have similar content, making the competition for visitors to a website challenging. As a result, a number of website publishers try to use manipulative strategies, like link wheels to increase their search engine rankings, visitors and potential customers.
What are Link Wheels?
Site 1 links to Site 2 and back to the “Targeted Web Site”
Site 2 links to Site 3 and back to the “Targeted Web Site”
Site 3 links to Site 4 and back to the “Targeted Web Site”
…
Site 13 links to Site 14 and back to the “Targeted Web Site”
Site 14 links to Site 15 and back to the “Targeted Web Site”
Site 15 links to Site 1 and back to the “Targeted Web Site”
The “Targeted Web Site” is the website that is trying increase search engine exposure.
Basic Vs. Advanced Link Wheel Techniques
Basic Link Wheel Technique
The basic link wheel a concept comprises of a simple singular wheel created from web 2.0 properties. As you can see below, each web 2.0 property links to the next web 2.0 property forming a link wheel. Each property then has a link to the “Targeted Web Site.” This style of link wheel was originally popular before the creation of the advanced link wheel technique.
Advanced Link Wheel Technique
The advanced link wheel concept is based upon randomization. Firstly there is a mixture of Web 2.0 Properties, Article Submissions and Blog Posts. Secondly there are multiple smaller link wheels or “sets.” Thirdly there is a randomized break within every smaller link wheel or set.
How Do Link Wheels Work?
Search engines in turn recognized that this would not allow them to properly provide search engine users accurate information and could affect how the user viewed the search engine. Many users were provided a list of search queries with a large number of results that were not truly relevant to the query. To circumvent the abuse of irrelevant keywords to gain higher rankings on search engines, search engine providers now use a mathematical algorithm to calculate how a website will rank on a search engine query.
The mathematical algorithm used to calculate search engine results rankings uses a number of different factors to determine a website’s ranking. Since there are a number of different factors involved, web developers and internet marketers use a method known as search engine optimization to develop and market websites so they rank higher on search engine query lists.
One of the factors used to determine rankings is back links or incoming links to a particular website. This is where link wheels play a role in increasing a website’s number of links – but keep in mind that a large number of low quality links is no longer beneficial – and this is essentially what link wheels do.
