Check out my linkwheel structure

Hey BHW,

So I'm still noobing hard when it comes to linkwheels. Conceptually, I understand how they work my problem is action. I guess my issue is how to go about populating the linkwheel and whether or not I can Dupe my content to make life easier. I would also like opinions on my structure. Here it is (a little sloppy but I dont like to waste time on things that aren't really going to make a difference)




This is what I was thinking,
Tier 1- 6 high PR web 2.0's with original content on all of them (done already)
Tier 2- 18 Decent 2.0s, want to know if I should strive to keep it all original or spin it up from tier 1 and call it a day.
Tier 3- 36 web 2.0s, This is the Tier I would start building links to. could I just use the same content from tier 1?
Tier 4- 108 Bookmarking? web 2.0? I don't know if this is overkill (or maybe I should do more?) and again how should I go about content?

Not looking to be spoonfed , I'd just like some opinions and maybe strategies working for others?

Thanks in Advance

anything beyond tier 1 should be in quantity.

How are you planning on keeping track of all that?

If you problem is "action" (which is most people's main obstacle) then why aren't you keeping the structure more...simple?

I like your linking strategy and the fact that you have a plan. The only trouble I see with this is that you're looking at a lot of work for yourself. Linking strategies are fantastic but don't work for every site. You could probably accomplish the same ranking or even better with a different approach. This may work well for some web properties, but may not work across all your sites with the same desired result. That said, a 'cookie-cutter' approach to link building may be a little overkill.

What I would suggest, and you may have already done this, is to take a closer look at your competition. This will obviously start with the main keyword that you are trying to rank for. If you have done your keyword analysis, you should be able to find all of your competition for that keyword and in turn, be able to analyze THEIR backlink strategy. This is a crucial step that often gets overlooked by IMers who are trying to achieve high rankings for a keyword.

Because every niche is different, each competitor different, and their linking strategies are different, it is very important to take a deep look into your competition. You may be surprised to find that they are ranking really well in Google with a very thin linking profile. This will make it easier to outrank their sites and can often be done with minimal effort. This, of course, can only be determined by carefully analyzing your competition to find what linking strategy that they have.

Once you have this information, you can accurately target useful backlinks that will allow each of your site's pages to outrank your competitor.

When I first got started in IM, I figured that making more and more links would immediately make my sites reach the top in Google. What I found was that this process was taking entirely too long for me to do since I write all of my own content. By automating the process with software, it helped improve my efficiency, but the results were not what I was originally hoping for. I kept thinking....more work, more writing, more spinning, more posting, more of everything should be the key but it wasn't.

All of my websites are unique and in a variety of niches, so having the same linking strategy across all my web properties won't effectively work the same. Instead, a new approach had to be found...one that required less work and better results.

I read more and more on the subject of analyzing my competitors and found that I could easily research and mimic the same backlinking strategy that my competition was using. This made for a much easier time outranking other sites with a lot less work. I could target a single backlink and make mine stronger than my competitor. This laser-targeted approach has given my rankings a tremendous boost over my competition in each niche that my web properties are ranking for.

Lowbrow said:

How are you planning on keeping track of all that?

If you problem is "action" (which is most people's main obstacle) then why aren't you keeping the structure more...simple?

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I was thinking of dropping off tier 4 entirely for the time being and then if i needed it, building it up. As far as keeping track I tend to be ridiculously organized and it also helps to have a whiteboard wall and interns.

Dawgtown said:

What I would suggest, and you may have already done this, is to take a closer look at your competition.

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First I want to say thanks for taking the time to post that. I have taken a look at my competitors, but I will admit I haven't put enough effort into developing a solid plan for putting that data to work for me. I guess I should also mention that I am an in-house SEO for a biotech company, which I think changes the rules a little bit. I also have pre-med interns that will not sleep if I need articles written. The problem with this niche is backlinks that would actually matter are really hard to get. For instance, my site has natural backlinks from yale, mdanderson cancer center, rockefeller university, etc... backlinks most of you would kill for are the "norm" in my niche. Our site performs well (patting myself on the back), but the competitor in particular I'm chasing down (I don't exactly need to outrank them as my employer is happy, its really for me) has an adwords budget of over 1m a year, domain authority is 54, PR is 6 total external links is 56k (99% do-follow). I'm Gonna get there links into an excel sheet and maybe pay more attention to their link profile (I've never given it more than 10 minutes of my attention span) and see whether or not I can procure some of those sources for my site, but as far as the linkwheel, do you think it would be wise to just drop off the fourth tier entirely? I can probably crack the whip and get 60 unique graduate written articles from the minions so would you say its worth it or should I use that content on the site's blog and be done.

shoaibahmad9999 said:

anything beyond tier 1 should be in quantity.

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To a point, I'm having astonishing success with a 1:10 ratio between tier 1 and tier 2s and then link wheeling tier 2s together... The success is great so far, even with only using about 10 of the easier web 2.0 sites that don't tend to delete spam as tier 2 (tier 1 is domain diverse, however)

This plan is probably overkill for a simple niche though... I tend to do 10 sites at a time for tier 1s now.

Didnt Matt Cuts say linkwheels are outdated and no longer work?

Expertpeon said:

To a point, I'm having astonishing success with a 1:10 ratio between tier 1 and tier 2s and then link wheeling tier 2s together... The success is great so far, even with only using about 10 of the easier web 2.0 sites that don't tend to delete spam as tier 2 (tier 1 is domain diverse, however)

This plan is probably overkill for a simple niche though... I tend to do 10 sites at a time for tier 1s now.

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So your saying 10 Tier 1 sites and then having 10 sites linking to each tier 1 site in tier 2. and are you linking tier 1 together at all?

CosmicSoundz said:

Didnt Matt Cuts say linkwheels are outdated and no longer work?

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I think its because of the footprint they tend to leave, which is why i wanted to stretch it out so much in my link structure, also each article that I was planning on having in tier 1,2,3 would be unique but the content in each article would lead into the next, so linking them together would make perfect sense (ex. tier 1 technical articles about *keyword*, tier 2 would be methods of *keyword*, tier 3 would be about innovations in *keyword*) and then i was thinking of having tier 4 just be spun articles from tier 1.

Hey can you point me on some basic guides on how to plan my linkwheel properly?

I like your idea on linking technical articles to the methods and then link that to the innovations. The only thing you need to worry about is having a diverse IP address for all of those posts.

I've got plenty of proxies, also should have mentioned that this is a 3-4 month plan. I'm just wondering if I should ditch the link wheel and have all these articles on the sites blog instead. Maybe building up the sites authority would be better given its niche

I think you'd be fine delving into that fourth tier, just be careful with your spun content from those tier 1's. If it is not unique enough, it could carry little weight for the effort that would have to be put into it.

As far as the article writing goes, that may be your best asset especially if you can get it onto some well-aged authority domains in the niche. Even better would be to use that unique content on some of your competitor's backlinks.

It sounds as if it will be quite difficult to go head to head with this competitor for ranking but shouldn't be impossible. If you can use his strength in the arena of backlinking to your advantage, by copying his link profile and then building on that, you could certainly get there. It is a more direct, focused approach that should yield good results without any wasted effort.

jsant07 said:

Maybe building up the sites authority would be better given its niche

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This would be the focus that I would shoot for. Having your best quality content on the site's blog and linking to it from some heavyweight domains should get you solid results. Authority is going to get your visitors to link to your content naturally. This is probably what has also happened over time with your main competitor in that niche.

My 2 cents: to keep things easier; build 1 'leg' of this structure at a time: T1-T4 in 1 go. T1 OC, T2 re-written "dupes" of T1, T3 "decently" spun copies and T4 as well. T3 and T4 sites should have whatever backlinking lazors you own pointed at them full blast on auto-pilot, and then start the next phase of T1-T4 sites.

If you start with creating all 6 T1 sites, I have a feeling you'll get burned out by the time you start creating the T3 and T4 "buffer" sites.

McDuck said:

My 2 cents: to keep things easier; build 1 'leg' of this structure at a time

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I was thinking about doing it that way, spread the work-load. I read something somewhere here about the dupe. content penalty being a myth, don't quote me on that I'll see if I can find the link

I think that's too many tiers - I just do 2 or 3 max

I never liked link wheel structure as it leaves too much footprint for G to find out easily & now i think everyone should be extremely cautious before using link wheel structure for their link building campaign.

so doing 3 tiers with unique high quality content would still be black hat in google eyes? I don't see how it could be, if anything isn't high quality unique content what they want?

on a side note, thanks everyone for discussing this with me, I mean Im not seo retarded by any means but I always leave this site wondering how I even got this far in my career without it.

Also thank you for burning out the last 2 1/2 hours of work on this long, long friday

jstan07, this is very nice scheme and will work. I think that this is big time saver. Writing 6 articles and creating link wheel with all tiers is about 8 hours for noob. If you have needed experience and softwares, this is about 2-3 hours. This will hit top 10 for ANY low competitive keyword and good on-page SEO. You don't need tier4. Just triple the numbers in tiers 2 and 3. Next create RSS feeds from tier 3 and submit them to pingler for periodic pings. In this way you will have always live links.