Link Wheels No Longer Effective?

17 replies
  • SEO
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I've been reading about link wheels. Basically, I've read that they used to be effective but aren't anymore. I was thinking about trying it, but don't want to waste my time. Are link wheels a waste of time now for building backlinks??
#effective #link #longer #wheels
  • Profile picture of the author JasonP
    Most people today would advise that they are a waste of time. Simply because google has "caught on" and discredits them or ignores them altogether. May be worth a try though. Can't believe everything you hear on the internet
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  • Profile picture of the author Rod Cortez
    I'm no SEO expert, but I've always approached my SEO efforts by doing everything as naturally as possible. So I don't buy into most of these fads like link wheels and back-linking a certain way. And so far it's worked out beautiful for me. As far as your specific question about link wheels......sheesh, I have NO idea! lol

    RoD "Yep-I've-Had-Way-Too-Many-Monsters-Today" Cortez
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    "Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out."
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  • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
    I use 'link wheels' or at least the concept to promote other web 2.0 properties such as blogs, articles, lenses etc that aren't my actual money site. This still seems to work fine for me. I don't make them perfect wheels though - I use them to help the Google spiders find their way through my various properties linking back to my main site. I have some properties that don't link to my main site too. I try and randomise it as much as possible while still keeping control of what is pointing to where.

    No one can or has really tried to measure the effectiveness of the method but you will get replies of a lot of opinions of what they think is happening on both sides of the story. The only way to know is to try for yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michelle Strait
    Thanks for the replies. Some of the discussions I've read on other websites say that link wheels can now get your website banned or ignored by Google. I have no clue at all if that's true or not. I just don't want to spend time building up a site only to get it banned because of a linking strategy.
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  • Profile picture of the author timpears
    I thought it was an accepted fact that there is no such banning system done by Google. I thought that it was well accepted that any time such a stratergy would be complimented, all your competitors would have to do is go out and set up, in this case a link wheel, and that would send you to oblivion as far as the SERPS go. Google would never do such a thing, they are way too smart for that.

    I just wonder how all these "facts" get started and then circulated. Another one I love to hear about is the duplicate content debate. So many people say that you will pay a price for duplicate content. Yet I watched a search engineer from Google tell us flat out there is no such penalty. And I believe that this is the same thing. To ignore the benefit of such a practice, they would have to do away with the theory of back links in general. And I would bet all I have that this would never happen. Google puts too much stock into the back link part of their calculations.
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    Tim Pears

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    • Profile picture of the author RyanRigney22
      Banned
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      • Profile picture of the author Frances Norah S
        Yeah, there have been rumors that Google somehow know about the Linkwheel strategy. As for me, ever since then, I just ensured that my link wheels are left opened.

        Previously, it was site A links to site B, site B links to site C and so on and the last site(site F) links to the first site(site A). But due to these Google-linkwheel rumor(I still don't know how true this is), I just link my final site(site F) to my money site. Notice that I do not close the linkwheel.

        Just my 2 cents worth. Correct me If I'm wrong. I am open to other effective strategies/opinions.
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        • Profile picture of the author sbp8610
          With the concept of the link wheel you have to backlink your web 2.0 properties right? So lets say you spend all day getting 100 backlinks for your web 2.0 link wheel properties one day. Do you think those 100 backlinks would be better off linking directly to your site, or linking to a page that is linking to your site?

          That's not an actual question. Just something for you guys to think about.

          -Scott
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  • Profile picture of the author roxstar
    I really enjoy link-wheeling, and it's been a little effective for me. However, I have yet to see any real results with it...
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    Kris Roxas - Founder of Incredible Wind Media and Restless Events. Restless Events is the fastest-growing corporate launch events company in Canada. You can find me on Twitter and Facebook.
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  • Profile picture of the author chini
    More people that know about it, google is eventually going to catch on. Sonn web 2.0 links are going to be worthless
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    • Profile picture of the author timpears
      Originally Posted by chini View Post

      More people that know about it, google is eventually going to catch on. Sonn web 2.0 links are going to be worthless
      I just don't understand this type of thinking. Google has made no secret that back links are a major part of the algorithm. All a link wheel is, is a group of mostly high PR rank sites that have links to your web site. This is the basis of off site SEO. So on one hand Google is telling us that back links are like a vote for your site, and you are telling us that if you get that vote from a certain group of sites, they will count against us. I just find that a little hard to buy.

      Google told me that the back links were good, and I think I will go with them as I believe they are the only ones that really know for sure. Google is not going to "catch on", Google is the one that decided this early on. I don't know if Yahoo and the others were doing this before Google came along as that was before I really got involved in it.
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      Tim Pears

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  • Profile picture of the author captivereef
    a mix of everything in moderation works well, do not depend on just one method of lining.

    I use a combination of linkwheels,profile links,article marketing,bog comments and link trades. Works great and all my site are holding their rankings.

    If you add a bunch of new links to a site it normally falls a bit as Google decides what to do with the links you added.The site should jump back up after a few days.
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  • Profile picture of the author linkwheeler
    We build link wheels on a regular basis for our customers with fantastic results. It is all about using a mix of SEM services.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anomaly1974
    The issue with Google is that it is a closed system of links all within the same limited set of sites ... it is going to come back and bite you on the bottom. If you always have the same links from the same sites back and forth, Google will notice something is wrong. Why do you think that the old three-way linking methods are no longer viable? As long as you do not have set patterns and never close the loop creating a loop that is going to be repetitive and redundant, you should not have troubles with the search engines. Using the same sites, the same links and the same direction for those links day in and day out is going to get a red flag from Google and may result in a black flag, tossing you out of the game altogether. The more organic your sites appear, the better off you are.
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    “They did not know it was impossible so they did it”
    -Samuel Clemens" (As Mark Twain)

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