There are two ways to generate backlinks. You already know this but for clarity’s sake, let me spell it out. You either build them or you earn them. That’s it. There are only two ways. Actually, if there is any one lesson you should learn from Google Panda, Google Penguin, and Google Hummingbird, it is this: It’s a good idea to earn or draw links. That’s it. That’s all the lessons you need.
Focus on earning links instead of building them. Why? Google is making it harder and harder to build backlinks. Google’s definition of credible link generation has become tighter and tighter over time. Worse, Google’s quality guidelines has so many weasel words, they pretty much can do anything they want. In fact, it is a minor miracle that they haven’t completely banned backlink building. But the reality is that day will eventually come. By then, backlink building will be considered 100 percent blackhat. You don’t want to be caught sitting down or sleeping when this happens. This is why you need to be proactive and start focusing on earning links instead.
Google Penguin is Serious about Link Quality
Google Penguin debuted a few years back but its effect are still being felt to this day. Google Penguin is the first update that publicly made it clear that Google does pay attention to the links that point to your site. Previously, Google kept repeating that links pointing to your site didn’t matter, what mattered are the sites that you linked to. Google thought that this is enough of a mechanism to make people would behave themselves. Well, considering that there are billion of dollars to be made through search engine manipulation, hardly anyone paid attention to Google’s preferred system. Google Penguin rocked the world.
The Rapid Evolution of Google Penguin
Google Penguin is like a common cold. There is no cure for the common cold because the virus that causes it rapidly mutates. Similarly, Google Penguin rapidly evolved from penalizing excessive anchor text linking to actually paying attention to the quality and theme of links and sources for those links. In one fell swoop, Google Penguin revolutionized how SEOs should look at links. It is not enough that you are building links and it is not enough that you have diversified your text, you also have to pay attention to your sources. It really scary folks. But wait, it will get even more frightening.
The Other Shoe Waiting to Fall: The Google Disavow Tool
The Google Disavow tool is actually a Trojan horse. I don’t care what many other experts say. I believe that Google’s disavow tool is a means for Google to trick link manipulators into outing themselves. Why? The Disavow tool is a crowd-sourcing tool. Basically, what Google is saying is go ahead and do our link quality control for us. As more people pay attention to their backlinks and try to detoxify their links using Google is disavow tool, the real winner is Google. Why? it doesn’t have to do anything to build a ‘master list’ of shady or suspect backlink sources. While Google is on the record as saying that they are not penalizing the websites found by the disavow tool, it is probably only a matter of time until they penalize those sites. The Google disavow tool is the other shoe willing to fall in SEO. Mark my words. Either Google will use it directly or use it indirectly. Regardless, they will use this database. They would be foolish not to.
Link Wheels are Only as Good as their Weakest Chain
I hope you appreciate the long wind up to this point of the article. After all, this is section is the meat and potatoes of this article. I went through an exhaustive discussion of Google’s changing link policies to shine a spotlight on the probable health of linkwheels after 2013. Let me repeat it: linkwheels are so 2013. They are things of the past. Why? Linkwheels are only as good as the weakest link in the chain. If you want to truly pull off a highly successful linkwheel, you have to have links going in and going out from quality websites. You can’t get slack in the middle. This is precisely where the leakage is. If Google finds out that you linked to a link network or finds the relationship between your links, it is lights out for you. It really is that simple. What is my proof for this? Pay attention to what happened with postjoint.com. Postjoint made a big deal at the fact that their links are “untraceable.” They claimed that the links that they have brokered cannot be found. In fact, even after Google penalized them, they are still bragging that only 16% have been detected. This 16 % claim is dubious unless they have access to all Google analytics accounts. It’s very hard to believe that they know only 16 % kind of threat.
Regardless, the whole PostJoint episode shows that Google detect link relationships and this is what is so scary about linkwheels. Why? Most people build links in a very sloppy way. They use web2.0 websites, they use free websites, and this can easily be traced. It’s too easy for people to get careless specially if they are building links to a website that is inside the linkwheel. There are just too many things that could go wrong. There are just so many things that can get knocked loose. It is really not worth the risk to do linkwheels.
The Central Question
The central question behind linkwheels is that this is link building taken to its most ridiculous form. Seriously, this is link manipulation at its worst. It’s only worked for so long because Google’s technology hasn’t evolved to detect linkwheels. Well guess what? Considering to what happened with Google’s crackdown on guest posting where it showed its ability to determine niches and link relationships, anything is possible now. That is why I am not holding my breath regarding linkwheels. If you are thinking of doing linkwheels in 2014, it is time to say goodbye to this form of link generation. Focus instead on drawing links. Focus instead on creating high quality websites that people can gravitate to naturally. Sure, this may take a lot of time. Sure, you might need to burn money until site gains traction. But that’s your problem. That is not Google’s problem. The reality is that you are still working on link schemes and link manipulation if you do link wheels. Link manipulation is increasingly a losing game. For the longest time, it was Google who was losing, but times have changed, and the link manipulators are on the losing end now. You would not want to be on losing team now, would you?
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