Will your 2012 backlinking strategy bring you in Google's crosshair?

[inplainview]

It looks like Google is intensifying his "detected unnatural links" notice campaign. This is an email you don't want to get from Google.

What are the culprits? Is it the anchor text abuse? Maybe the link exchange?

Help me identify what particular "links scheme" triggers this notice.

I've been looking through the results of this query: site:google.com "detected unnatural links", and found that link exchange is particularly trigger friendly, but I assume that other factors like link distribution to the inner pages might play a role as well.

I'm a big fan of link diversity, because I'm convinced that Google is passing value on the type of link, but how diverse should a link portfolio be?

[crabfoot]

A straight link swap is a bit obvious, but triangular swaps appear to get past them.

I've participated in a few "Please link to site X from your site Y, and I'll put a link to site Y on one of these other two sites S or T" and they haven't sent me an email.

OTOH the Panda appears to have decided that a few of my sites are unnatural ...

[rob]

One thing a friend has noticed getting 'spotted' is new links on old pages. It used to be a good trick to spot nice old authority pages, and enable a link placement. This apparently now has been spotted.

To me, think of Google like a person. 'It' probably knows more and has more common sense than the average person anyway

[KenW3]

The phrase, Link Schemes, carries with it a definition of attempting to manipulate SERPs. Any attempts to artificially manipulate SE results is a problem, if detected. G is getting better at detecting link patterns and linking footprints. Some of the structures (link wheels) and link software create obvious patterns visible to algorithms; Other methods are visible to human reviewers. I find it amusing that wannabe gurus teach these methods on (other) forums and sell products, yet their students somehow believe G employees are too ignorant to read and understand what they are being taught to do (I can think of three link info forums, offhand, that actively teach and promote obsolete procedures.)

The easier a link is to create, the more likely it will be considered link spam by G. Too many links from forums, link farms, and social bookmarks, can be a problem. I have read that G is starting to classify splog sites for the purpose of finding footprints. Cross linking your own sites from the same IP address is not recommended.

Now that G has improved their algos, buying links from sellers (high PR or not) has become a much greater problem. G looks at the anchor text of the other links on the page, and can now identify related sites by keywords using latent semantic indexing (LSI). If you have bought links, and the link seller has sold links to anyone willing to pay, you could have your site associated with unrelated niches.

It used to be that any link was worth having, even though each might carry different weights. As the G algos progress, this is becoming less true every day. Of course, you can still find advocates of these extinct methods selling services and giving outdated advice. Unfortunately, some new webmasters in search of a holy grail of SEO are actually still spending valuable time and (too much) money on processes that now have the opposite effect to that which is desired, hurting rankings instead of helping.

If you are running Java 1.5 or higher, TouchGraph.com has an interesting link visualization tool

[Kay]

Cross linking your own sites from the same IP address is not recommended.

In all or most cases? I do cross-linking between my sites all the time. I reckon they would pass a human reviewer. Say I visit a city, I would write about the city itself and attractions for my (expat) travel site, do some restaurant reviews on the food blog, and post about facilities there for my disbaled travel blog. Each would be cross-linked to the others to provide yet more information for anyone planning to visit that place. This cross-linking seems to be a valid activity to me. Do you think it could harm the sites? (All sites are on the same server and clearly identified as belonging in the same stable, but they're not splogs.)

[KenW3]

While the actual reality is more complicated than a blanket statement that same-IP cross-linking is a bad idea, erring on the side of caution is not. Would a human reviewer look at intent and see similar subjects? That is likely. Would your sites on the same IP get better SEO benefit with each on a distinct IP through somebody like SeoHosting.co.uk (or SeoHosting.com)? Only if you also dofollow out to other sites with helpful information, on the same subjects, that are not your sites.

Cross-linking is how the net is structured, so it is not a bad thing unless a SE sees attempts at manipulation. As the OP is about unnatural links and link schemes triggering G notices, only you would know if G is generating these notices. If you don't have these, then I would assume your method is not the problem as defined.

Kay, Do you do this with most articles? Contextual is less of a problem than reciprocal blogroll links or separate link pages. If it is a regular practice to write two similar articles on two separate sites (on the same IP) and link them back and forth, that is a footprint which can be seen. If you are not linking for SERP ranking, this question would not apply, but... When you are being helpful to visitors, will a spider see links to several helpful sites across the net on the given subject? or are the links only to your sites? That is a footprint, but wouldn't know the G algo effect for this.

While I do think different IPs would provide better ranking in SERPs for keywords, I do not think the type of linking you do would harm your sites for ranking. Your sites are a bit different than what most people would have. I would expect companion sites similar to what the BBC operates to regularly reciprocal-link BBC News, BBC TV, BBC Radio sites for stories and reviews.

[Kay]

Sometimes I think that we should get another hosting account instead of putting everything onto the same VPS. But we're not trying to game anyone, we're simply doing things in an honest way. If G is going to punish us for that then I guess we will have to start trying to play tricks.

I don't do the cross-linking with every article, only when it's relevant. But, yes, I do often stick links to our other sites in the various blog rolls. They're maybe not all that relevant but the sites do kinda hang together quite well, so if you're interested in one, you might well be interested in some of the others.

Also, some of my sites (eg the food blog) are generous with links out to external sites whereas some (the expat site) are quite mean with them - you have to do something for me (give me an article, a photo, etc) to earn one.

I've tended to think of G as the hand who feeds me so I've not tried to bite it by doing any funny stuff. I'd prefer not to have to start doing that.

[Saul]

Unfortunately, some new webmasters in search of a holy grail of SEO are actually still spending valuable time and (too much) money on processes that now have the opposite effect to that which is desired, hurting rankings instead of helping.

They don't have an obvious immediate opposite effect. The opposite effect may or may not happen in foreseeable future but as long as the money and time spent brings positive return on investment, I will be spending money and time. Really, this applies to all SEO methods, extinct and those to be invented - sooner or later Google will catch up on them. The question is not whether they make you Google's target, but can you avoid being hit long enough to make profit.

[DomainMagnate]

Things are a bit blurry now in the SEO space and there is more controversy than usual. I'm incorporating more social aspects into my backlinking, not just getting some cheap social bookmarks, but actually setting up profiles and establishing some activity to help promote brand authority for my top sites by triggering more of those indicators. Time will tell if that has a significant effect, I think it should though. Just having active and established facebook and twitter profiles for a site should have an effect. With followers, friends, retweets and discussions.

Also basically focusing on creating more higher quality content and encouraging user engagement and interaction.

[inplainview]

Talking about shady link practices...

Check out Matt Cutts latest (PR) stunt. The read itself is very instructive, and I'm half through the comment section where I few members of the webspam team join the discussion with their opinions.

While I see this more like a PR move, I do feel that Google is consistent with enforcing the rules, even within their own web properties. 2012 will categorically be a very interesting year for SEO.