What is a Link Wheel & what are the benefits?

[SCArt]

My understanding (could easily be wrong) of a link wheel is that it creates indirect links to your main website from articles, blogs etc.

So an article links to your blog, which then links to your website.

Does anyone know what are the advantages of this sort of linking for SEO purposes, over simply linking directly from blog to website or from article to website.

And, if there are advantages, what is an ideal link wheel to set up (that's a big question!).

Many Thanks for any advice

[Ranks]

The idea is the links from the sites alone would not be as strong but for the links from the other sites boosting them up. Links allow the SE's robots to move around the internet, this is where the boost comes from - more robot traffic. I don't use link wheels exactly, but do approach link building in a similar way, with various levels of link building.
The ideal (only?) way to create linkwheels is to have as many sites (and types of site) in the wheel, with as many random links between them as possible.
Jay

[eventdomain]

You won't get anything from an SEO point of view, as the web is too big a place for even 1000 links to do much. 1 single blog link, against 1000's, its nothing.

What you will get is a link/route to your site where people might follow it to find you, if their bored, just want to 'check you out' or do a link exchange. Eg:

Hey Pete, look at this website I found - its great

I find 56% of my traffic to be untargeted for my needs. Just shows how many mistakes searchers make every day, and most searches are mistakes, accidental or just curious web clicking...

Or the worst kind of traffic - Untargeted visitors.....

[Biffo]

Link wheels were good, however I think there are other far more effective link building strategies.

[eventdomain]

more robot traffic


that's zero boost bcos its not human visitors that will make a purchase

[SCArt]

Just to add a bit more info to the mix -

Our current link building strategies have proved pretty successful so far i.e. publishing articles, press releases, blogging and getting out there on the social networks. Biffo - are these the more effective strategies you are talking about or are there others I don't know about?

We now appear on page 1 of Google betwen positions 4 and 10 for 4 different keywords. Our aim is now to get to positions 1-3 (based on info from a previous thread about the dramatic increase in visitors in these positions).

Eventdomain - Dealing with the non-buying type of visitor is on the back-burner at the moment.

So, I suppose my point is if we now want to get to positions 1-3 should we just carry on with our existing link building strategy or also start trying link wheels. Will they add any benefit?

[Ranks]

that's zero boost bcos its not human visitors that will make a purchase

We are talking link building, hence the importance of robot traffic. No robots to your links, mean no links to your site in the eyes of the SE's. With plenty of robot traffic you get SERP changes quicker, new content indexed faster, and in some cases higher ranks.
Jay

[eventdomain]

With plenty of robot traffic you get SERP changes quicker, new content indexed faster, and in some cases higher ranks.



Kind of...... their okayish only for ROI - but these 'free results' are just that FREE. And as a freebie, they have limitations and those are: You will find it very difficult and a constant battle to stand out using the free offerings only.

Free search results are at best 'too sporadic', will deliver the odd few enquiries, as the basis for them is 'backfill' to create the resource itself. The free SERPS aren't going to be exceptional at driving traffic - trust what I say because I own a huge bot-driven search engine which is the biggest in the world at what it does.

People need to know that Free results will not set the world on fire for individuals, unless you spend a fortune on SEO services and link building - and link buying plus advert buying is a huge part of that.

Its cheaper to buy targeted weblinks, than it is to drop £5'000 on SEO.

[terryuk]

If I were you, I would promote a 'parasite' page (press release, blog post, web20 page etc) or a second website rather than linking directly to your website directly. And then let the visitor to continue from the parasite page through a redirect.

Benefit of promoting a parasite page, is the domain *should* already have huge authority, and less likely that your site is penalised when they follow the wheel.

[eventdomain]

A parasite page will be useless, its just one page and a single webpage cannot ever gain authority status.

Its worth trying to get on the authority websites for your industry, but even those will want money, so pay them......

Its simple enough, you pay you get in! You dont pay, you never get in :D

[terryuk]

A parasite page will be useless, its just one page and a single webpage cannot ever gain authority status.

Its worth trying to get on the authority websites for your industry, but even those will want money, so pay them......

Its simple enough, you pay you get in! You dont pay, you never get in :D

One page with a few links pointing to it.. on a domain which has over a few hundred thousand links already.. sounds good to me...

[eventdomain]

One page with a few links pointing to it.. on a domain which has over a few hundred thousand links already.. sounds good to me...


Your page will be treated as spam and deleted. You're content will never reach these websites anyway..

[terryuk]

Your page will be treated as spam and deleted. You're content will never reach these websites anyway..

I will agree to disagree :)

[eventdomain]

on a domain which has over a few hundred thousand links already


Chances are this amazing domain name that you'll just find with all these great links to it, won't match your main website theme the links will be untargeted. Also these 'authority' websites would need to be open to allowing any old naff page, and they just wont do that I'm afraid. These are professional sites owned by established companies which probably spend a fortune on spam measures to stop silly webmasters doing this stuff.


few hundred thousand links


That's difficult for most websites, never mind a dumped and given up domain name. There's no way some would sell such a domain with all those links, so I dont know where you're going to find this domain, but I wish you luck.

[terryuk]

Chances are this amazing domain name that you'll just find with all these great links to it, won't match your main website theme the links will be untargeted. Also these 'authority' websites would need to be open to allowing any old naff page, and they just wont do that I'm afraid. These are professional sites owned by established companies which probably spend a fortune on spam measures to stop silly webmasters doing this stuff.

Lol ok.. Who said anything about spam content? and who is a silly webmaster, when they are cleary taking more initiative than someone posting to a few directories (practically worthless anyways)..

[eventdomain]

Lol ok.. Who said anything about spam content? and who is a silly webmaster, when they are cleary taking more initiative than someone posting to a few directories (practically worthless anyways)..


I imagine you mean something viral? But, a single page cannot do this, unless you reinvented the Million dollar homepage, but that's been done already, and these ideas are just not that easy to come up with.

No, this idea needs to be an entire website, and incorporate a viral idea into it, then you may have something.

You wont find a domain that's just been cast aside, that will have 100'000 plus links.

[terryuk]

I imagine you mean something viral? But, a single page cannot do this, unless you reinvented the Million dollar homepage, but that's been done already, and these ideas are just not that easy to come up with.

No, this idea needs to be an entire website, and incorporate a viral idea into it, then you may have something.

You wont find a domain that's just been cast aside, that will have 100'000 plus links.

No I don't... back to the original topic the 'link wheel' often made of hundreds of spokes on authority web20 websites (up to hundreds of thousands of links to the domain itself). Of course the site won't be on your topic as a whole, but there are obvious ways to work with that on such sites, and to create benefit to your 'money' site.

I have a one domain with 260k links to it.... and no million dollar homepage, with PR6... I'll leave you to think how..

[eventdomain]

Link wheel strategy is where you’ll be creating web 2.0 websites like wordpress, blogspot, squidoo


I thought as much - Web 2.0" is basically interactive information sharing, and that means owning something with masses of information in a single website - NOT a single webpage, which won't have the room for masses of info. No info means nothing to offer.

I love it when webmasters swoop on forums and talk about technology and how their going to take over the world, when they don't even own such websites, and never will - yet they think this can be done using a single webpage that they call an 'authority site'. :(

Thing is, they kind of need to own such a massive website for anyone to want to link to it, but they don't ofcourse. I think we all know they don't own such beasts. So how can this amazing web ring exist, this hub of excellence - come-on this fantasy talk.

Networks are just about the hardest thing to build as you need a killer idea, and a ton of media to launch it. The free linking thing was over years ago, why can't people just accept this and move on.

Even link exchanging is near its time, it hardly works anymore and is too time-consuming. Also the UK isn't into it anymore, its more of a US thing now, but give it time and that will die too.

Either people buy weblinks, adverts etc - or their web biz will die very quickly from lack of exposure. Note I said 'web biz' as in the web side of things and not necessarily an entire business. This web linking buzz cannot be done on a bit of social networking, a few blogs and very bad ideas.

[Ranks]

eventdomain, you seem to have very little knowledge about organic SEO and the results it can bring. What is your involvement in SEO?
Jay

[SCArt]

Many Thanks rosstyler for getting the thread back on track and answering my original question :)

I think we will give the link wheel a go, as well as continuing with our usual link building efforts, if there is still some benefit to be had.

Just for the record - we do not buy links or do link exchanges but have managed to get to page 1 through our own internal efforts (admittedly not hugely competitive keywords but ones with some big guns at the top). I certainly wouldn't agree that you need to buy links - neither, for the record, are thousands of links needed for high rankings.

[eventdomain]

admittedly not hugely competitive keywords


There you go.... you won't stand out using cheap keywords and it wont bring in enough business. The search engines have the power to flick a switch and put you down the rankings whenever they choose. Or you can be beaten by other companies that spend more than you do.

[OldWelshGuy]

My involvement is that I own 2 search engines, one is crawler-based and the largest niche engine in the world.

I also used to own a forum, 2 directories, acquired a third directory in 06, set up an article website service and used to run an offline business too.

But I no longer dabble in SEO much, as I employ others to do the worrying for me.

So the answer to 'what's your involvement in SEO' is 'none' then :)

[eventdomain]

So the answer to 'what's your involvement in SEO' is 'none' then :)


mmmm, more like I control others SEO efforts.

SEO is a large concern, its too big a job for a single method to work/provide enough ROI.

I just know it will take way more than the web currently has on offer - to improve promotion for everyone. Too many websites, and too few top positions available....