How risky is using automated linking tools today ??

Hey,
with all the recent panda and penguin it's becoming very risky to manipulate the search with mass automated link building. I still see many folks offering services and talking about success stories from using blasting technics.. that makes me wonder if this method is still working if knowing how to configure the blasting correctly or perhaps if running a simple blasting can actually hurt your ranking ??


I'm also trying to understand the formula for a wrong blasting configuration that can trigger a penalty (is it amount of links? type of links ? consistence over time, etc.. ).


Another question that comes up - how easy is it to get a penalty by building links with automated software's ? where is this line crosses of using it correctly or using it wrong that can harm ranking ??


Helpful answers are more than welcome..
Thanks

It depends on their use. Think how could an algorithm detect that you're doing this:

- all links created at same time, or at least each tier of links all created at same time
- sudden, massive boost in links
- content spun poorly (massive uniqueness and readibility needed for safety)
- a site with 99% links with very low PR is suspicious
- a site with 99% links all of one type is suspicious
- links entirely on pages on platforms known to be targets of xrumer/scrapebox etc

So you can get around them, but you need to spam intelligently.

Google is quite, in my opinion shockingly so, lazy about penalising for the usage of these tools. That's probably to reduce the potential of negative SEO.

As always, one or two of these things being violated is probably ok, do all of them and you're heading for trouble.

As James says - it's not the tool it's the user.

If you have more than one site - or the site you have is very big with lots of pages you want to rank - then automation is pretty much the only way you are going to succeed.
Sensible low level linking over time.

Check out the ebook in my sig for the best practices and an idea of exactly how many links the best performing websites were creating in early 2013.
Based on a calculation (it's NOT generic info) so you'll need to know a bit about your current websites metrics before you can work out how to do it.

Note - It is based on REFERRERS not LINKS... and URL'S not WEBSITES...

It's all explained in the ebook

Keep on top of Google and mimic the factors and metrics of the best performing sites - it's the only way to succeed long term.

Scritty