if 222 is ALWAYS in the middle it shows a pattern, and as such should not be all that hard to detect. It get's a little hard when you end up being 111 and 333 and have a few natural one-way links going this way and that. It also gets easier to spot if you've signed up for such programs at sites that specifically offer them. I think that a few 3-way links are more then fine, as statistically they are unavoidable within your niche, but if that is all you have, then yeah, they are likely spotted by algorithms. It also seems that they can spot 4-way linking schemes as well. Q
Guys, are you kidding? This is not even a linking scheme, three-way or otherwise This is a three way linking scheme and it would be very easy to see why Google can easily spot it: Site 111.111.111 links to site 222.222.222 Site 222.222.222 links to site 333.333.333 Site 333.333.333 links to site 111.111.111 Same goes for four-way and I don't know what the max number or circular patters they certainly can detect but I can imagine that as long as you break the circle they will be out of luck...