Magic Number for a Link Wheel

[stargate03]

I've been reading a lot about connecting a link wheel to one of the sections of the link wheel, as this then gives one of your links even more link juice.

As in... 10 articles around the money site, and you then start doing the same but treating article 3 as the new central money site.. is this exactly what you are saying don't do?
And instead just create a totally new wheel which doesn't link up at all to link wheel 1?

No

What i am saying is - you can create as many links and linkwheels as you want connecting to a linkwheel that coonects to your money site

but if you had the following


Gambling Money Site

and created linkwheels for

keyword 1 - winning at Roulette

keyword 2 - how to cheat at poker


do not link the how to cheat at poker linkwheel to the winning at roulette linkwheel

But you can then create linkwheels for

how to play roulette and roulette betting techniques

and link them only to the winning at roulette linkwheel

 

[stargate03]

Just thought of a good analogy

Take a tree

The trunk is your money site

The branches are your linkwheels and the smaller branches off the big branches are the linkwheels promoting the sites in your linkwheels.

well if your tree gets a disease in a branch, you just cut off the branch and the rest as they are not connected carry on growing

but if branches were connected, you would have to cut off all the branches and have nothing then connected to the trunk making it grow

 

[krish22]

now thats what is clld an informatve thrd.

 

[muchacho]

Just thought of a good analogy

Take a tree

The trunk is your money site

The branches are your linkwheels and the smaller branches off the big branches are the linkwheels promoting the sites in your linkwheels.

well if your tree gets a disease in a branch, you just cut off the branch and the rest as they are not connected carry on growing

but if branches were connected, you would have to cut off all the branches and have nothing then connected to the trunk making it grow

So basically, you're saying don't link Article 1 to Article 2 .. and don't link Article 2 to Article 3 .. etc.

Instead, link Article 1 to money site
link Article 2 to money site.

And do a linkwheel for Article 1...
and a link wheel for Article 2 etc.

An interesting thought, do you have enough evidence to back this up as being a better way to go about it?

 

[OldMadHatter]

six is an arbitrary value chosen by the people promoting the method to make it palatable.
the more, the merrier. closing or not closing the wheel is irrelevant in regards to G's ability of spotting something strange - they are all linking to the money site and there is a 1-2-1 link in between them. that is enough to trigger a reaction.

I personally suspect the so called Google dance is that reaction - G notices the linkwheel, indexes the properties, but still waits for a couple of weeks to check which properties are still online, if they were updated and kept relevant. The fact that some moneysites get better SERPS after the wheel matures might come from G's acceptance of your layout.

I prefer to close the wheels loosely via a post and comment on a relevant 3rd party blog that is considerably more mature than the wheel. You might find some benefits in doing that.

 

[muchacho]

they are all linking to the money site and there is a 1-2-1 link in between them. that is enough to trigger a reaction.

But the money site isn't linking back. I don't think Google like to punish websites just because an entity is linking to it ... otherwise, you could punish your competitors, so easily.

 

[OldMadHatter]

@29 true - I am talking about "punishing" the Web2.0 properties, which can be delisted with no remorse. Otherwise I totally agree with you.

 

[stargate03]

@29 true - I am talking about "punishing" the Web2.0 properties, which can be delisted with no remorse. Otherwise I totally agree with you.

Which is the whole point of not multi interlinking linkwheels

that way if 1 gets deindexed it just screws up 1 wheel and the rest are still fine

 

[stargate03]

So basically, you're saying don't link Article 1 to Article 2 .. and don't link Article 2 to Article 3 .. etc.

Instead, link Article 1 to money site
link Article 2 to money site.

And do a linkwheel for Article 1...
and a link wheel for Article 2 etc.

An interesting thought, do you have enough evidence to back this up as being a better way to go about it?

Its just the way i do things which gives the most success

my evidence is it works for me and something i learned from the mistakes of interlinking.

it rarely leads to sites being sandboxed or any major google dance, due to the fact you can easily cut away the crap wheels

but each to their own

 

[kanshu]

For me, the concept of link wheels makes sense if you are building artificial traffic and using the outer sites to attract more links. If you keep this in mind, then it is easy to see why you don't need to build up the outer sites--i.e., create and link more sites around each of them. It is enough that each outer site has one incoming link from a high PR site.

The only flaw I see with the link wheel concept is the idea/belief that the quality of the central site or money site cannot be affected by the quality of the incoming link. If we believe that Google's only metric for quality is the total number of incoming links, then the concept is sound. But what if the rate of incoming links over a period of time is the true metric, then the link wheel concept is vulnerable. Maybe not today, but it is in the future.

Another problem I found in the link wheel concept is it's mathematical foundation. After we linked together the outer sites, there's practically no mathematical basis to guide us for additional links we might add. It's guesswork from here on.

 

[bhatsuccess]

Damn this is an interesting conversation.

Ok, so I've read all the angles in this thread and I'm really leaning toward the viral analogy where in a closed wheel if you ever need to sever an 'extremity' it limits the spread of the infection.

I've done many linkwheels and I can tell you they work...But let me impose this...

Why not randomize your linkwheels?

Example:

Hubpage 1 > Hubpage 4 (contextual link) and Money Site
Hubage 2 > Hubpage 3 in a Blogroll and Money Site
Hubage 3 > Hubpage 5 (contextual link) and Money Site
Hubpage 6 > Hubpage 1 in a Blogroll and Money Site

If you diagram this I believe it has the same effect but the randomization effect looks more "natural"

Thoughts?

 

[Yukinari84]

I find it funny that people bring chemistry designs and mathematics into something that really is not that difficult at all to comprehend. There's no magic or complicated equations when dealing with link wheels.

A Link Wheel serves 2 main purposes(at least for me):

1. Creates a shield around your money page. This way you can leverage the power of Social Bookmarking, articles, etc...any link building activity at a faster pace and a higher level than you could without this shield. This way you aren't just throwing a bunch of links at your money page. So even if one wheel or part of a wheel doesn't rank or get's deindexed, your money page is still protected.

2. Creates instant "authority" for your main site/money page in Google's eyes since you are basically feeding off of the authority of popular web 2.0 sites that Google loves and gives credibility to.

That's really all a link wheel is for. If your keyword research is sound, your content is good and properly targeted for your keywords, and your backlinking strategy is good, you can enjoy of the benefits of getting multiple properties ranked by Google very fast. You will also enjoy a boost in PR and authority for your main site over time.

I understand a lot of people have a hard time grasping the Link wheel concept, but be careful not to over-complicate something that really doesn't have to be that hard.

 

[krish22]

Yes! Yukinari84.i couldn't agree with you more.

 

[stargate03]

I find it funny that people bring chemistry designs and mathematics into something that really is not that difficult at all to comprehend. There's no magic or complicated equations when dealing with link wheels.

A Link Wheel serves 2 main purposes(at least for me):

1. Creates a shield around your money page. This way you can leverage the power of Social Bookmarking, articles, etc...any link building activity at a faster pace and a higher level than you could without this shield. This way you aren't just throwing a bunch of links at your money page. So even if one wheel or part of a wheel doesn't rank or get's deindexed, your money page is still protected.

2. Creates instant "authority" for your main site/money page in Google's eyes since you are basically feeding off of the authority of popular web 2.0 sites that Google loves and gives credibility to.

That's really all a link wheel is for. If your keyword research is sound, your content is good and properly targeted for your keywords, and your backlinking strategy is good, you can enjoy of the benefits of getting multiple properties ranked by Google very fast. You will also enjoy a boost in PR and authority for your main site over time.

I understand a lot of people have a hard time grasping the Link wheel concept, but be careful not to over-complicate something that really doesn't have to be that hard.

I dont think its being over complicated

the later discussion is more about what the ongoing structure looks like and what effect it has if theres a problem

Its a bit like the link farm issues a year ago when google started checking on link farms and purchasing links

if you are part of a link farm that google deindexes, theres a good chance all the links from the farm to your site will be worthless, in fact damaging, you can get penalties for purchasing links

Linkwheel structrue has the same possibilities, if you create 20 individual keyword networks (containing linkwheels) to your site, if one gets deindexed, the others are still fine

whereas if you link them all up, you could end up losing all the links in these networks

so linkwheel structure is important,

 

[muchacho]

The question to be asked is, why would Google punish a website for links pointing to it, when it's quite feasible that those links are out of the website owner's hands?

It's like me pointing to a competitor's website and the competitor being punished for it. It just sounds bizarre. You could easily punish a competitor if this is the case.

 

[zebrahat]

congrats. you COMPLETELY missed my point.

Nah, I just went to the main point. The issue of Google detecting the link system is different from the issue of the effectiveness of the linkwheel. The wheel is powerful when each Web 2.0 spoke is carrying its own juice, that each exports equally to the target site, and the next property. The first doesn't have to have 'extra' juice, in order for the wheel to serve its purpose of acting in a synergy to add rank and traffic to the target site.

 

[kanshu]

Nah, I just went to the main point. The issue of Google detecting the link system is different from the issue of the effectiveness of the linkwheel. The wheel is powerful when each Web 2.0 spoke is carrying its own juice, that each exports equally to the target site, and the next property. The first doesn't have to have 'extra' juice, in order for the wheel to serve its purpose of acting in a synergy to add rank and traffic to the target site.

Exactly. Those who swear by link wheels do not seem to see anything else but the wheel. They seem to be fixated by this one aspect and that it "somehow" works.

For those of us who actually have to maintain the integrity and reputation of a large growing cluster of websites, link wheels introduce other issues that are more problematic.

 

[kanshu]

The question to be asked is, why would Google punish a website for links pointing to it, when it's quite feasible that those links are out of the website owner's hands?
It's like me pointing to a competitor's website and the competitor being punished for it. It just sounds bizarre. You could easily punish a competitor if this is the case.

Although you meant to ask a rhetorical question, I'm still going to answer it and give it a shot.

It is not the incoming low-PR link that is the problem. It is the absence of trusted, high-PR links and the discovery of spurious high-PR links that really affects the ranking of the site. You can't deindex a competitor site with low-PR links if they have thousands of trusted, high-PR links.

By the way, from the programming point of view, it is not that difficult to develop an algorithm to check/verify the quality of incoming links.

 

[muchacho]

By the way, from the programming point of view, it is not that difficult to develop an algorithm to check/verify the quality of incoming links.

Verifying incoming links is one thing, but actually punishing a website is another.

 

[stargate03]

The question to be asked is, why would Google punish a website for links pointing to it, when it's quite feasible that those links are out of the website owner's hands?

It's like me pointing to a competitor's website and the competitor being punished for it. It just sounds bizarre. You could easily punish a competitor if this is the case.

Then why are websites punished at all if its out of the website owners hands

I cant help it if 100,000 sites decided to link to my 1 day old site on the same day, but i bet google would punish me.

As said above its about authority and structure