'legitimate' link wheels
-
I was wondering what SEOMoz' thoughts are on the mega legitimate link wheel sites that are out there.
TechMediaNet have been buying up massive news/media sites which arent really monetised (adsense) like http://www.space.com/ http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/ livescience.com and others and generating, admittedly good quality, curated content.
Then seeding them with content with backlinks to their money site, toptenreviews.com which in essence is a review site with thousands of pages loaded with affiliate links no better than any of the other site out there. e.g. http://www.livescience.com/9755-bing.html
due to the scale of what they're doing pretty much any keyword search i do with review in it (the last thing i wanted to purchase was a usb 3 hub) ends up with toptenreviews.com dominating the serps
presumably due to the high PR the viral nature of the media sites are working with.
Do you think Google will crack down on this, or do you think it's capitalism in action? TechMediaNet have invested millions in this project and just gotten another $33 million in funding recently.....
-
Great Post.
-
The link wheel only refers to the linking patterns - it has nothing to do with the quality of the links or the quality of the content. If you used crappy content and you didn't link properly, it's no wonder you had ranking instability (although that's normal when it comes to web2.0 link wheels, especially the poorly built ones, as some web2.0 properties get deleted, you lose the link and you lose the rank as well). HQ link wheels, like the ones mentioned by the OP, will never get you in trouble - but you'll need more time / resources to build them or they will be more expensive if you want to purchase such a service
-
This is proof that the link wheel still works. Like idimmu pointed out, all the huge media or news networks use it and if you look carefully, all the big bloggers out there use it. The link wheel is used constantly in one form or another, it's just that people using it don't call it by it's name. I mean, when you, as a big profile blogger / expert do 20 guest posts which all link to one of your websites and then link those guest posts to each other, how do you call that? Or when you own 10+ websites in the same niche (all with high authority and trust) and you link them all together via some blog posts promoting your latest product / service, how do you call that. You call that a link wheel.
And no matter how much people would tell you that link wheels don't work anymore, you have proof the they actually do. But all in moderation (just as with any other link building strategy). High quality stuff will always do good, no matter what changes google brings on. So if you're planning to build an seo link wheel, make sure you do it right - read this for more details on how to build a proper seo link wheel.
-
There is no such thing as a legitimate link wheel. I don't care how high the quality of a site is someone acquires. If they buy it then work on a large scale to back-fill links into old content, that is absolutely against Google's concept of legitimate efforts.
Any site that does this on a big enough scale if caught, will go down. Period. No question.
The question instead is - can they get away with it? Yeah probably. Up until a certain point. I've seen many go down over the past year and a half.
Just like every other shiny object hack, it all comes down to willingness to risk the entire operation.
-
I think it's likely that, for their "paying" site, they're not too bothered about rank - they're probably relying more on social sharing and linking. Otherwise yes, it would seem to be a bad idea. Odd one.
-
Which news story is that?
-
To be honest if you have a high quality site with great content and then you come in and fill it with ads it may not be the best strategy.
In regards to link wheels the strategy has developed over the years, where people have the money site and they build content hubs on say 40 different websites and all spam back links to the main site, it is probably not the best strategy and Google has been aware of it for a long while.
It depends on how high quality the site is if it is going to be hit or not, if the site is really high quality with a huge link profile it may be able to by pass a Google penalty.
In the end of the day Google can crack down at any time no matter how large the site is look at the BBC News story in the media today.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Low value link building to sitemap.xml
During some competitive research recently I discovered one of my clients competitors sites had an interesting backlink profile. Looking at the top-pages report in Open Site Explorer the home page was the #1 page (as you'd expect) with 2.5k links from about 500 linking root domains The second page was the sitemap.xml (~1.5k links, 400 linking root domains) and the third was their /feed page (again, ~1.5k links, 350 linking root domains). Links to these two pages aren't something that would happen naturally (particularly the sitemap.xml). There's a whole load of evidence for nasty low quality link building such as over-optimised keyword rich anchor text, comment spam, and even some blog/article based link networks. It's a pretty nasty niche with lots of cut-throat affiliate marketing. My guess here is that someone may have made a mistake using an automated link building too, but I'd be interested in what you might think? Have you seen this before? (Sorry, I can't reveal the domains in question as I'm bound by an NDA.)
Affiliate Marketing | | DougRoberts0 -
New site started doing well, now it's tanking
Im confused by activity from a site I opened less than a month ago. I ranked in the top ten for the local version of my primary phrase. Within two weeks I was up to number two. I created a few new pages without content in order to build age. I also paid for a pair of clearly marked classified ads at trusted sites thatprovide traffic from potential clients. Next, I stated revamping my pages by revising and editing content. my site has dropped like a brick. My content is the best it's been and improving daily. Im not sure what to do. Should I start over? Do I keep improving my site and give it a few months? Would anyone be willing to review my site and provide a few tips? Fyi, I understand some of my pages need more content. my formatting is a mess with iOS 7 on iPad.
Affiliate Marketing | | youngmaster0 -
What is the right way to link to your main site?
Hi, we have a system for tracking the leads that comes from a specific affiliate website. each affiliate has a unique tracking code. not only for affiliates that work with us but also for the SEO team has an affiliate tracking code so our bosses can track the leads and traffic that come from the activity of the SEO team. this means, links towards our website look like: www.mydomain.com/?t_src=campaign&t=AFF&t_cre=links&A=371 www.mydomain.com/?A=371 I have few questions about this: 1. This is the right way to link to my company site? How dose google crawl those link? It's can harm the link value? 2. What is my option to show my boss all the traffic / leads that our seo team brings to the site trough Google Analytics? Hope to get your support. Thanks in advance.
Affiliate Marketing | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Adroll vs Adsense: Pro's and Cons
Hey everyone, Do you prefer Adroll or Adsense and why? What are some pros and cons of each?
Affiliate Marketing | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Can linking out to a weak site harm my sites SEO?
We have an affiliate that wants us to link to his site to help him get started. His website looks okay and is in the same niche as us. However, he has PR 0 and no Page Trust. We could work in a natural looking link in a news article, but there is no way he could be considered any kind of "authority" link. Can linking to his site harm us?
Affiliate Marketing | | theLotter0 -
SEO and Affiliate Links
Hello, We run a travel related website and we started to run our own affilate newtwork to promote the sales of our products. At the moment the affilate links pont to a spacific affilate url in order to tack conversions : abcweb.com/affiliate/nameqaz I'm wondering how is the best way to run a private affilate programm considering SEO: Is there a way yo benefit from those links ? What are the best strategies to do this? If yes, Is there any benefit from redirecting 301 those links to the original page (the one accesible to google and the one we want to rank for) or is it better to use a king of canonical method. Thanks a lot for sharing you experiences , giving your opinion and indicate resources. Best Regards Daria
Affiliate Marketing | | stereo690 -
Will giving a blogger an affiliate url to my site reduce her links' seo value to me?
If a blogger were to write a post about one of my products and link to my product page, would giving her an affiliate url to link to rather than the normal link spoil the seo value of the link? So instead of mysite.com/product-one it would be mysite.com/affiliate/blogger/product-one Google would think... this is a transaction not a vote of confidence?
Affiliate Marketing | | Brocberry0 -
Best Way for Resellers to Use Outbound Links to Software Demos
I have a software reseller site that wants to have ever-present linking buttons to demos of the software they sell--the demos are on their software vendor sites. My concerns relate to SEO and leaking link juice; but, also to constantly providing visitors with the exit door. What are the best practices for such a situation?
Affiliate Marketing | | Court_LOQUA0