Link Wheel SEO

Link wheels are an SEO technique that emerged largely because of the big preference given by search engines to Domain Names. Domain names are the web addresses that cover the naked IP numbers underneath the Domain Name.

Example of Domain Names

bbc.co.uk
newscientist.co.uk
photography.co.uk
dental.co.uk

For example say I know a photographer who wants a web site. He goes by the name of "Sharp Images". His web site address is www.sharpimages.com. Great! One problem He takes photographs in Blackpool and that is not clear in his web address. A certain amount can be done to make it clear on the page but he could also buy another name www.photographyblackpool.co.uk. You can just point both those names at the same site. But you can also get penalised for this. As multiple domain names was abused by unscrupulous web-developers.

Ethical Link Wheels

The problems come if you try to conceal that these are webverts or sister sites. Some unscrupulous web developers will create sister sites that then recommend themselves. ....To be an ethical link wheel, the sister site should declare the relation to the mother site. If not, it's deception, lies by omission. Ultimately, it is trust one is trying to build.

Link wheel creation

linkwheel

The other technique is to create a sister web site from the mother site. So the sister site would be www.photographyblackpool.co.uk and www.sharpimages.com would be the mother site. Linking the pair together would then provide another way of directing traffic to the mother site - because people searching for 'photography Blackpool' would find the sister site and the link to the mother site.

Then the client says, "I get quite a lot of work from Liverpool", or alternatively "I wish I was getting more work from Liverpool". So naturally, you suggest another sister site Liverpoolphotography.co.uk. The cost of the sister sites is quite low as they are essentially 3-5 page webverts.

Link wheel service

But there is another problem/opportunity. The content on the sister site cannot be a carbon copy of the mother site. It must be sufficiently different for the Search Engines. Otherwise, the search engines penalise your web site again.

What else can we do drive traffic to the mother site, which can be considered the axle of the link wheel?

Well we could create profiles on Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter. What this is doing is making different channels through which people searching for things on the internet can find the mother site (the hub of the link wheel). It provides more and more opportunities to be found.