Link Schemes

"Link scheme" is the usual term for a linkage pattern whose perceived intent is to "artificially" improve rankings or PR.

New ones are dreamt up as old ones are negated, unfortunately there are few if any that can avoid the "intent to manipulate" test that Google uses to determine what is or is not a "links scheme".

As there are both personal links schemes and public ones, for clarity these will be looked at separately.

Personal Schemes

While not exclusive to Google a warning against participation in "links schemes designed to improve PR or rankings" has always featured in their webmaster guidelines and though initially seen as limited to FFA links this has since widened considerably to include most link manipulations such as interlinking domain networks, overuse of link exchanges or site "inflation".

On their own none of these will get a site linkage deemed a "links scheme" but they do act as pointers and having too many pointers can.

With Google penalties for sites seen as links schemes used to be PR loss and/or a site ban so it was fairly easy to identify them, these days G seems to favour simply de-indexing or dropping rankings which can make a linkage based penalty harder to identify.

With Yahoo! things appear less combative, they will take action with overly interlinked networks but a lot of the other stuff appears to fly under their radar.

Public Schemes

There's quite a number of these and though most are "pay to play", a few aren't.

They range in type from cooperative networks where members promote each others sites through footer links, review sites where you pay to have your site "reviewed" to the more mundane link exchange directory.

With Google threatening action against non-conforming bought or exchanged links there's been a move towards a more "natural" look, the aim now is to surround links in relevant text within the page content.

This is a lot more subtle method than past schemes where bought/exchanged links stood out like sore thumbs and will be a tougher nut for Google to crack, though they will no doubt be helped by the propensity of this sector to believe moderation is for Wimps.

For further reading on links schemes we recommend: