Linkwheels/pyramids still alive?

Hey,
I hear a lot that linkwheels and linkpyramids are not effective anymore or google
sees them and penalizes your site. Is this true?

Besides, does it help when you not totally ''close'' the wheel?

Thanks

Huh? Where you hearing that?

Whatever your hearing be it - blog comments, profile links, link wheels, pyramids ....

Means nothing!!! nothing is being penalized!

I've just done a small linkwheel for a 3 month old site with no backlinks and just shot to number 8 for a medium competitive keyword that gets 150k searches a month.

I doubt there dead pal!

Just a tip, when building a link wheel after you've built one build another pointing towards your first link wheel and so on... there working for me

Build quality links and google would ignore even if there is a footprint. That's a guarantee. Just stick to unique content for your tier 1 properties.

Awesome! Thanks buds!