A link scheme is a group of unnatural links pointing to a domain. It is used to artificially manipulate a website's organic search rankings.
Search engines use automated systems and manual reviews to combat link schemes and detect billions of spammy links daily.
Google penalizes sites that engage in black hat link building tactics, such as paying for links or creating link farms, to artificially boost their site authority.
Types of Link Schemes
Here are the most common examples of link schemes:
Buying or Selling Links
Serpstat did a survey and found that:
- The time required to see results from link acquisition is 1-3 months.
- 44% of SEOs agree that links as a ranking factor will stay the same in the next 5 years at the minimum. Building natural backlinks is the key to a successful SEO strategy.
People know that building links helps their site rank higher and generate more leads.
However, links are challenging to acquire. Hence, buying backlinks is seen as the quickest and easiest option by many new sites.
92% of SEOs agree that their competitors buy backlinks.
However, some websites make it a business to sell dofollow links on their website. While, some start buying links from irrelevant or low authority domains, which seem unnatural.
Selling links on your site or buying links from other sites in an uncontrolled manner is not allowed by Google.
If you are found to buy or sell links that pass link equity unnaturally, you might face a Google penalty and a drop in search rankings.
Excessive Link Exchanges (Reciprocal Links)
Another black hat SEO practice for building inbound links is link exchange. Reciprocal link schemes are mutual arrangements in which two sites agree to link to each other to increase their link equity. While some reciprocal linking is natural, Google has not approved engaging in excessive exchanges to boost rankings without providing real value or relevance to users.
Automated Link Building Programs or Services
Some black hat link building agencies use software to create hundreds or thousands of low-quality links to a domain quickly. Such black-hat SEO links serve no value to the users and are viewed as link spam. These backlinks might lead to penalties from search engines for unnatural linking.
Article Submission with Exact-Match Anchors
Another link scheme is preparing low-quality or AI-written content and submitting it to spammy article directories. Google does not recommend writing articles with exact-match anchors solely to gain a bunch of links, as doing so can damage your link profile and reputation.
Private Blog Networks
PBNs are networks of several websites that all link to each other to raise each other’s authority. It is one of the most common black-hat SEO tactics involving sites that are solely created to sell backlinks. PBNs are against Google guidelines, and any domain that acquires bad links from PBN sites might get penalized.
Unnatural Outbound Links
Placing keyword-rich links in content or comments that don’t naturally fit or provide value can trigger spam search algorithms. These paid placements or link swaps that manipulate a page’s authority lead to low rankings in search engines. For example, inserting a link in a blog post that has no relevance to the content is counted as a link scheme.
Irrelevant or Low-Quality Directory Submissions
Submitting a website to unrelated directories just to gain backlinks is considered a manipulative tactic. While directory submissions can be useful for local SEO, submitting to numerous irrelevant or low-quality directories is considered a manipulative tactic. Low-quality web directories have little editorial oversight and exist purely for link building purposes. A large percentage of bad backlinks from low-value web directories lead to web spam and manual action.
Dangers of Participating in Link Schemes
You should not participate in link schemes, which might lead to a Google penalty.
There are two types of Google penalties that can happen due to unnatural link schemes.
The first is an algorithmic penalty, where Google webspam detection systems automatically detect manipulative links and minimize their link equity.
The second is the manual action penalty imposed by the webspam team on sites that violate the Google Search Essential guidelines and engage in large-scale link schemes. These are harsh and can wipe your entire site from showing in the organic search results. Google notifies such penalties by sending a message in the Search Console.
Hence, you should never create backlinks from unrelated or low-quality domains that engage in link spam to avoid Google penalties.
How to Identify a Link Scheme?
Here are the top ways to identify link schemes:
Sudden Spike in Backlinks
If you see a rapid increase in backlinks within a short period of time, say 100 links in two days, especially from sites you have never heard of, that’s a major red flag.
Editorial backlinks don’t usually come in waves. They build up over time. A sudden spike might mean your link building agency engages in link schemes to build your site authority artificially.
So, how many links should you build in a month? Research reveals that top-ranking pages gain organic backlinks from new referring domains at a rate of 5% to 14.5% per month.
Links Coming from Irrelevant or Low-Quality Sites
Be cautious if you check your backlinks and see links from random, irrelevant sites that don’t match your industry. If these websites seem spammy, with little content or purpose, chances are they exist solely to manipulate rankings, and you could be caught in a link scheme.
Exact-Match Anchor Text
If all your backlinks seem to have the same keyword-rich anchor text, that’s not a good sign. In natural linking, anchor text varies. People use your brand name, URLs, or even random words to link to you. However, in a link scheme, they will use the same keywords repeatedly to boost rankings.
Ideally, most of your link anchors should be branded or URL-based. Exact-match should be used in moderation. You can also use phrase-match or synonym-based anchors.
Getting Links from Sites with No Traffic
Have you looked into some of the sites linking to you and found that they have no visitors or engagement? If these sites are not generating any organic search traffic but are linking to you, they are probably not doing it naturally. That could mean you are involved in a link scheme.
Backlinks from Unrelated Niches or Languages
Suppose a backlink profile audit reveals that you have links from websites in different industries or languages, it is a clear warning. Why would a site about cooking link to your digital marketing blog? These unrelated backlinks usually point to manipulative practices and are detected by link spam updates.
Links Without Original and High-Quality Content
One way to spot unnatural links is by checking if they come from poor or duplicate content. If the content seems unrelated, copied, or filled with too many keywords and links to random sites, it's likely part of a link scheme. This kind of content is usually made just to trick search engine rankings rather than help users.
Frequently Asked Questions On Link Schemes
Can affiliate links be part of a link scheme?
Affiliate links, when used properly, are not considered a link scheme. However, search engines can flag sites that use affiliate links manipulatively (such as excessive, irrelevant placements) without proper disclosure.
Are guest posts considered part of a link scheme?
Guest blogging is not inherently a link scheme, but it becomes problematic if used solely in your link building strategy without adding value or if the content is irrelevant or low-quality. Paid or excessive guest posts with do-follow links in the author bio with keywords can trigger penalties.
Can I recover from a link scheme penalty?
Recovering from a link penalty (especially a manual penalty) is challenging. First, you need to carry out a link check using a backlink audit tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush to identify all the unnatural backlinks in your link profile. Next, you will have to remove all the toxic links by emailing the respective webmasters. For the harmful links you can’t remove, you will have to disavow them and submit a reconsideration request. While you remove the unnatural links, it is also recommended that you build high-quality contextual links to further boost your site authority and minimize the aftereffects of the Google penalty.
How can I protect my site from receiving spammy links?
Conduct link audits using tools like Google Search Console or SEO platforms like Ahrefs, SEMrush, SErankings, or other software. If you find spammy or harmful links, you can disavow them to prevent negative SEO impacts.
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