Link wheel - Is it really that effective?

I think it's important to have a wide link profile --- getting links from many different types of sites looks more "natural."

Of course... I don't have access to the equations Google actually uses, so it's always a bit of a guessing game isn't it. You find something that works for you and you try to refine it as much as you can.

I like to link to a lot of pages that link to my pages rather than always linking back directly. I do this for a number of reasons. One is it gives me more chances to get my pages on the first page of the search engine results and another is I think it looks more natural.

So yes, "link wheels" have worked well for me.

 

While I can see the merit of having other sites that you promote link to your site, I don't see the benifit of the 'wheel' formation.

There doesnt' seem to be any benifit at all to the spokes in your wheel being linked to each other. I think a 'star' formation would be equally as effective.

 

Actually, in practice - I guess that's more how I do it. I don't tend to link my web 2.0 pages to each other, that seems kind of spammy to me? All of my web 2.0 pages link back to my main landing pages (on my own domains.)

 

I'm not 100% sure if it works or not, but here's what people are thinking:

From a PageRank standpoint, the wheel configuration would pass generated rank in a one-way direction, kind of like a three-way link exchange. As outside spokes feed rank to the pages inside the wheel, and they begin feeding rank to each other, a super-charged pagerank ball of incredible energy is created... funneling into the center.

It's kinda like the end of the movie The Fifth Element, only instead of a hot chick in the middle, it's your website.

 

Yes it is, first, the websites that you are using are high PageRank (PR) social Web2.0 properties such as Google Knol, Quizilla, Hubpages. These sites have high authority in the eyes of the search engines so those pages will often rank quicker and higher than your target webpage. Second, by building several different websites that contain your content, you increase the chances that you can have several spots in the top 10 results and, therefore, increase your chance to capture that traffic. It's not uncommon for a properly developed link wheel to secure 2-5 positions out of the top 10 spots depending on the keyword that you select.

In the end, link wheels are an amazingly effective SEO tactic to not only increase your target website's ranking, but also to have multiple properties listed in the top spots of the SERPs.

 

LoL, not exactly.

First of all, three way link exchanges provide some of the least SEO benefit possible.

Second, first you have to get your outer spokes to rank well before they can pass any benifit to your inner hub. That means you have to build quality backlinsk to your outter spokes before they can pass pagerank to anyone.

And, no, this doesn't create any sort of 'super-charged' pagerank. That's just misguided hype. It's just regular pagerank based off of quality backlinks.

 

I think you make some good points.

But it's important to emphasize that proper promotion needs to be done to each spoke in order to provide any SEO benifit at all. On it's own, a profile page on a pr5 social media site will have no pagerank at all, and will provide no SEO benifit at all.

You'll have to do the very same link building on each of your spokes as you do on your target in order for it to give you anything.

 

You can't make a statement like this with no solid evidence to back it up. Just like I can't make the reverse statement and say that three-way exchanges are "awesome for SEO". Not without showing some concrete examples.

That said, I think we all agree that anytime you write unique, quality content, whether on 2.0 sites, article sites, or even your own site, you're going to eventually get ranked well with the search engines.

 

Anytime you have to GIVE a link in order to RECEIVE one, then it's going to be less effective. Why? Because the number of outbound links you have has a impact on your SERP ranking.

Number of outbound links have been a part of Google's algorithm since the inception of the Google search engine.

Look it up yourself if you don't believe me.

 

I am not sure whether they are snake oil peddlers or not but the scheme is a shame actually, to put it mildly. These techniques, like the 3-way links of sometime ago are nothing more than shortcuts and why would Google let such things pass from under its nose and at its own cost?

PS: haha you gave me a good laugh, though with that snake oil peddlers phrase, man

 

Has much to do with the competition. If it's low, go for it.

 

It's not that I don't believe you. But lots of people have "figured out" that getting an inbound link from a site, and then giving a link to another (different) site is better than just swapping links 1-for-1.

Whether this is true or not, who can say? But a very large number of people all across the internet seem to think it is.

 

Some really fine insights

 

Yes, that might be a bit better than swapping links 1-for-1, but it's FAR less effective than just getting an inbound link without having to give one up.

Anytime you have to GIVE a link to RECEIVE one, it's not even close to as effective as it is if you just RECEIVE one.

What you want is ONE WAY LINKS. You want to increase your inbound links without increasing your outbound links.

 

This was a great debate. I really loved the read and this will be helpful with my link wheel that I am planning for one of my sites.

 

Got some more info about why link wheels are usually not effective. Most people what they do is connect their site to 5-10 self hosted sites with the desired anchor text and leave it there thinking that google will do rest itself.

Innovating you techniques by doing link building for each of the spokes can generate effective result. Doing, do-follow blog commenting, forum posting, social bookmarking etc can help your spokes rank for long tail keywords and generate traffic to your main site. Yes, this may sound as a lot of work but the ROI is immense. You also can update content once a week and than do regular link building. Sooner or later you will rank for some major keywords giving you enough traffic to make sales or to convert your returns.

 

This thread has been very informative and as stated above, it seems that there is a popular opinion that web 2.0 properties, if properly filled with good content and maintained with natural linkbuilding, will provide great links resources regardless if linked in a wheel format.

It still seems to be up in the air whether linking the web 2.0 properties in the wheel format is beneficial or or has a negative impact.

So the question from me now is: Assuming you would have multiple sites in a similar niche or subject matter, in which you would want to make a wheel for every supporting site, would it make more sense to make one large wheel of the generic nature, that all your sites can use. Then add articles that link back to each of your sites that you want it to support? My theory is that its less blogs to update, which will give more unique content to one blog, and it would be easier to add backlinks to those few blogs in that wheel, then for all the wheels created. And the blogs will look less spammy. But would 20 links out from these blogs be too many? Would you then connect them?

I'd like to hear some opinions on this.

 

I would recommend one link wheel per site. Each web 2.0 will look less spammy if only 2 links are directing towards external links.

One to your main site and other to the next web 2.0. But a third one can also be made only to link your inner page.

I will not recommend making one link wheel for 2 same niche sites or 20 different sites. These link wheels are supposed to bring you quality backlinks. 20-25 external links would do no good to you or your sites.