Have LinkWheels Finally Had Their Day
Has Google wiped out linkwheels?
In the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed a couple of different sites in separate competitive UK markets absolutely tank. One site has dropped down 7 pages for it’s main keyword term and the other almost 10.
Those are quite big drops considering both sites were on the 1st page and have been fairly solid for 1-2 year plus.
Both of the link profiles of these sites relied heavily on web 2.0 properties, wikis, spun 1 page sites, and were interlinked in classic link wheel style.
At the same time both the sites have tanked. Coincidence??
March 4th, 2012 at 8:15 am
Was creating big link wheels considered grey or black hat?
March 5th, 2012 at 5:14 am
Jordan, you’ll have to ask Google for a definitive answer but they were/are definitely against Google’s terms and conditions. As a long term strategy I wouldn’t recommend 1 page web 2.0 link wheels. I’ve also seen a number of the accounts closed down on them. The 2 examples that i mentioned above had relied on them and their rankings have now disappeared.
Kieran Flanagan has a decent post on them http://www.searchbrat.com/link-wheel-the-comprehensive-guide/