This is part 1 of a two-part series. Next week on Wednesday, I’ll publish part 2 in the series – Link Wheels and How to NOT Get Your Site Sandboxed. Stay tuned!
The dreaded sandbox is every blogger’s worst nightmare – that is, if you’re making a living primarily by creating and monetizing niche sites. But don’t worry; I have a way you can put those fears to rest – and it starts with understanding link wheels.
Now, I’m sure some of you are staring at this with wide eyes and opened mouths thinking, “But I loved playing in the sandbox when I was younger! So why should Internet marketers fear boxes of sand?” 
Well, just read on.
Boxes of Sand
Think Back to When You Were a Child.
Do you remember going to the beach? Maybe you had your very own sandbox. Like many children, you probably enjoyed building castles in the sand, which really looked like giant ant hills (but nobody ever told you that).
When someone else knocks your cherished castle over and it’s permitted to fall back into a sand mound, you can’t help but cover yourself in it – admire the way each grain of rock works together to hide your little body, as you gather bunches of sand and fling it across your legs.
First you bury your toes, then you bury your thighs, then your stomach, and lastly your shoulders – laughing giddily while your mother tries to find you. Eyes squeezed shut, your high-pitched squeals give yourself away entirely; but you don’t know it, and your mother is more than happy to play along.
Come Back to Where You Are Now.
Many of you are bloggers and entrepreneurs. A lot of you are writers. But most of you own your own website.
And here in the online world, sand is deadly.
No one likes playing in sand – not in the Internet sense of the word. And if you aren’t too careful, that sand can quickly turn into quicksand. It will suck you up. And you’ll get buried.
No matter how much content you write or how high you scream, demanding people to listen to you – no one will pay attention. Because no one will be able to find you. You’ll be too far under, suffocating under the weight of the sand. Every earning potential you once thought existed will too get sucked under.
Destroyed.
You see, too much sand can kill businesses. It can destroy ideas. Sand murders chances.
But What is this Sand We Speak Of?
How can such a warm, fuzzy childhood memory be so dangerous?
To get “sandboxed” in the online sense of the word means to have a site completely disappear from search engines like Google. So, if you focus entirely on search engines as your primary source of traffic, sandboxes are detrimental to the health of your online business.
For those of you who work on getting backlinks naturally and participate in honest (white-hat) methods of increasing traffic to your site, you have nothing to worry about. But if you’re building a niche site and you’re using shady (black-hat) programs to get millions of backlinks to your site in hopes that your niche site will rank higher in search engines (leading to more traffic and potential income, depending on your monetization methods), Google might find your activities suspicious and so will remove you from search results altogether – putting you in the deadly sandbox.
See where this is going?
And if you get Google angry, you too will be at the mercy of the sandbox, struggling to climb out without enough fuel or traffic to keep your site going – which brings us to our next topic…
Link Wheels
Before we go any further, I’m going to talk about what exactly a link wheel is for those of you confused.
What’s in a Link Wheel?
There are two different ways to optimize your website for search engines – on-page optimization, which focuses on creating content around specific keywords on the actual site, and off-page optimization, which focuses on everything else off the site that you do to optimize your site for search engines. Backlinks play a major role here.
Link wheels are a form of off-page optimization, since the purpose of a link wheel is primarily to increase the number of targeted backlinks to your niche site (off the page). A link wheel is basically a network of Web 2.0 sites (highly ranked sites like HubPages, Squidoo, and InfoBarrel) that link back to your original niche site as well as to other Web 2.0 sites. Link wheels can be a powerful way to increase your search rankings but, if overdone, they can also bury you in the deadly sandbox.
Here’s an example of a link wheel (one I’ve personally created) that I use for my own niche sites. Arrows represent links.
As you see, the link wheel can be a powerful tool if used correctly. Keep in mind that there are many variations of link wheels. This is just the one I created for my own personal use (you can use it too if you’d like). You can start anywhere and add whichever Web 2.0 sites you want to the link wheel. You can even change the direction of your links so that they don’t all point to one site after another.
But creating a link wheel is pointless if you don’t know how to use it. I explain this in the next section.
Using the Link Wheel
As I mentioned before, the link wheel is primarily used to boost your site in search engine rankings. So, if you want a site to rank for a specific keyword, you can use the link wheel to create content on Web 2.0 sites that will link to your niche site using your keyword phrase as anchor text.
For example, I’m currently working on a niche site that I hope to rank highly for the keyword phrase “betta fish care.” Feel free to follow my progress in the Niche Site Duel if you aren’t already doing so.
Often, its good to have a plan or model to go by before taking action. The link wheel acts as that model. Each arrow represents one link and each yellow bubble represents a Web 2.0 site. So, as I add content to each Web 2.0 site, I also include a link back over to my niche site in each article. Of course, I’d then use the keyword phrase I’m trying rank for in the anchor text of each link (the text readers click on to visit a particular link).
Below is an example of what you would do if you were to only write for one Web 2.0 site.
Normally, each Web 2.0 article that you write would include a link to the next Web 2.0 site in the sequence. So, every Ezine article written will link to every Squidoo article that you write. Then, your Squidoo article will link to a Triond article (see the first example).
Linking to each of these articles will increase the strength of the links pointing to your niche site. If you’re following my link wheel model, you’ll bookmark each article you create on various bookmarking sites as well, which will then further increase your link strength. When you complete the wheel, you just write a new article for your niche site and start the wheel all over again, creating new content on Web 2.0 sites and bookmarking your articles.
But What if I Want to Create My Own Link Wheel?
In the next part of this two-part series, I’ll talk about different variations of link wheels and how to reduce your risks of getting sandboxed. Hope to see you there!
In the meantime, tell me what you think. What is your opinion about link wheels? Do you think that they negatively impact the online world for other Internet users, or are they just a good way to manage your content? Would you use a link wheel?
Can’t wait to see your responses in the comment section!
Wow.
I am glad my business partner handles all of this SEO stuff because even though you did a marvelous job explaining Link Wheels, my head is still kinda spinning thinking of the work that goes into making it happen.
If you’re doing everything it takes to run a site like this alone Christina, the creation of content, the SEO stuff, the marketing stuff, consultations, etc., etc. – I take my hat off to you.
Wearing all the hats isn’t easy but with the help of smart people like you, sharing short cuts like this, it all becomes simpler.
Keep up the good work girly!:)
Thanks! I actually don’t do much SEO for this blog because I’m not as focused on search engine traffic here as I am elsewhere. Every now and then, I will backlink an article, but it’s not a significant factor in this blog’s traffic. With my niche sites, however, I depend heavily on search engine traffic, so I do actively backlink my articles.
As of right now, I do the majority of promotion, backlinking, and writing for my niche sites, though I’m seriously thinking about outsourcing. I just don’t have enough time in the day to do everything that I want to get done, so I think outsourcing a writer or two will help free up time to pursue other things.
However, if I do outsource, it would only be for my niche sites; I don’t intend to outsource for Cash Campfire any time in the future, as this is my main blog and I can’t imagine ever tiring from it or not having the time to write. And I really enjoy writing here.
Anyway, enough of my rant. Thanks for the comment!
Christina
Hey Christina, nice to see you taking on this topic. I tend to think that people who think of backlinking as creating a “wheel” are trying to make things more complicated. It may be just me but I always like to think of just stacking links like blocks or in a pyramid shape is more true to a safe process and easier to envision… but maybe that’s just me. Keep up the good work.
ps – See, I finally got myself a fancy custom domain and email address.
Pretty cool huh? 
Hi Chezfat,
Thanks for dropping by!
To be honest, I’m pretty new to the link wheel concept (I only just started playing around with it a few months ago). I like it though because it does keep me more organized, and it increases the rate that I actually backlink my articles (usually I procrastinate and don’t get backlinks in at all). But everyone is different. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. What’s important is that you find something that works well for you – and to hell with the rest.
By the way, congratulations on your new domain name and email address! Awesome, isn’t it?
And it’s so much easier visiting your site without having to add “blogspot” at the end. 
On a side note, I noticed that you got rid of comments. Can I ask how come?
It’s good to hear from you. Best of luck with your niche sites!
Christina
ohh, how weird… I didn’t even realize my comments were missing.
You just gave me a major project for the evening – fixing that problem. Ugh.
Ah, heh. I wondered about that. I was about to comment on a post when I noticed there wasn’t a comment field.
Well, that sucked a bit – I gave up and just switched up my theme. :/ The comment section was tweaking out for a long time on my site for a while so I guess this was a long time coming. I’ll have to work on the template a bit more but at least my comments are back. Feel free to comment away now.
Aww, I’m sorry for the trouble! I can’t imagine a theme that would turn off comments without even somehow notifying you. That’s crazy. o.O
Well, at least you got it working now – and if I can help in any way, just let me know!
Christina
Hi Christina,
I think I understand your strategy for link wheel. First I post some good articles in articles sites like “Ezine articles” and add link back to niche/main site. Then I start bookmarking these articles in famous bookmarking sites. This is what you want to say, Am I right?
Hi Sam,
You have it exactly! Though, you can also have a similar affect without getting the bookmarking in. It might take longer but bookmarking isn’t mandatory. Sometimes I go without bookmarking altogether.
Christina
Link Wheels are best way to generate numbers of backlinks plus huge traffic. But you need to be very careful about it.
Hi Riya,
Yep – care must be taken if you’re thinking about working on your own link wheel. You don’t want to go overboard!
Christina
Wow, Christina, you’ve boggled my mind with this article. And I used to associate ‘sandboxes’ with good times
I don’t have any niche sites, but I can understand the importance of link wheels, and links in general. As much as it pains me to use SEO practices, I know they’ve got to be done to some degree, otherwise you’re affecting the potential traffic towards your site.
I may sound like a technophobe here, especially as I’d rather focus on content and networking any day, but SEO needs to be done. Perhaps I should start up a niche site to give me some practice.
Now there’s a thought
Thanks Stuart!
There’s definitely mixed controversy regarding SEO, but here’s how I see it: optimizing your sites for search engines is perfectly fine, as long as you’re providing value, truly believe you are providing value, and your readers will benefit in some way from the content you write.
So many people dislike SEO, and while I understand where they are coming from, the truth is that SEO is just another way to increase the relevancy of search results. Yes, it’s true that some people take advantage of search engines (and I honestly believe that it is those people who put a bad name on SEO in the first place), but if you didn’t optimize your sites in some way for search engines (no matter how slight), sometimes it’s next to impossible to rank well for the valuable content you took the time to write because the content that IS RANKING has taken advantage of SEO.
The way I see it is, as long as you don’t write crappy content ONLY to increase traffic and dominate the search engines, it’s fine to practice SEO. The problem lies when you participate in “black-hat” methods and don’t care about the readers who might be consuming the information you write.
Make sense? Thanks for your comment!
Christina
Yeah, you make sense here, and I agree about the black-hat methods bringing a bad taste to the table.
My main issue with SEO is that I don’t see the importance of it in a great light. Sure, it helps, but I don’t want to dedicate my allotted time to more SEO work than content work, or networking work.
Thanks for the reply Christina
Hey Stuart,
I agree – SEO shouldn’t be your main objective. And, really, if your content isn’t top-notch and no one likes reading your stuff, a little SEO probably won’t help at all.
Your main concern should be the quality of your content and your readers. Does your post fulfill a need? Will it evoke emotion or help your audience improve some aspect of their lives? How will this piece be received – will others find it useful? Everything else is secondary.
Love your comments, Stuart!
Christina
Hey Stuart – I just wanted to chime in here after reading your comment – you are obviously in the SEO is a necessary evil camp but think of it this way. In the real world you would never start a store in the back alley next to an empty street, you would want it on the busy street corner where people see it… and even if you do not get a prime location you will advertise the existence of your awesome store full of incredible content to get people to head over to to it.
You simply cannot take SEO lightly – it is the way to market your online business to the world. Yes, referrals generally convert better than anything else and networking is a good way to get those referrals but there are far more customers out there that won’t ever find your site unless you do some on-page and off-page SEO.
Backlink building (of the non-spam variety) is insanely important in the long run. It may not seem to be time well spent publishing backlink articles and publishing blog guestposts but after you produce excellent content for your site you need to spend five times as much time promoting your work than you did creating it in the first place.
In the business world everyone knows it costs more to get a new customer than it does to market to an existing customer but you cannot grow unless you continue to invest in building your customer base.
Hey Brian,
I love the store analogy, and I think that it’s great how you’re expanding the conversation.
Also, many bloggers just don’t picture guest posts as another way to build backlinks; instead, they view it as a direct method to increase traffic from a particular source, but they don’t see how guest posts can have a long-lasting effect.
This is a HUGE mistake many new bloggers make. They spend so much effort spreading the word and guest posting on other blogs, but they don’t think to increase the power of the links in their author bylines by linking to their blogs with targeted keywords (instead, they just wrap links around their names or the name of their blogs). And, to be honest, I’ve made this same mistake before in the past.
Christina
Great post, Christina!
I’m a big fan of link wheels. I’ve used them to get certain posts of mine higher up in the rankings, and they’ve worked swimmingly.
It’s sad that we have to resort to “trickery” like this, but at the same time, if our content is great, it deserves to show up high in Google, right? If that doesn’t happen naturally, we’ve got to resort to the trickery, I guess.
Thanks! Post enjoyed and retweeted
Thanks Tristan,
Glad to see you roaming around the blog.
Personally, I don’t like to think of link wheels as “trickery,” but merely a way to increase search relevancy. In fact, I don’t think there’s a problem with link wheels at all, as long as you continuously strive to provide readers with valuable information. The problem lies when you’re just writing crappy content to dominate search engines and increase traffic. But from what I’ve read, Google usually catches such content “violators” anyway, and away in the sandbox they go.
Thanks for the comment and tweet!
Christina
Good post, Christina! Linkwheels are effective if done correctly. One aspect to keep in mind is to change the direction of the wheel at every round, and better, use new web 2.0 websites in the wheel that you didn’t use in the previous round(s). This way you’re not leaving obvious link building patterns behind that G can interpret as what they are
Hi Aloys,
Thanks for the tips! I read something about switching link patterns before, though I think you should still keep the Web 2.0 sites at a minimum. Also, never sacrifice quality for quantity! If you’re continuously giving readers quality information, I don’t think it will be a problem where Google is concerned.
I’m glad it’s working for you.
Christina
Hey Christina,
You post raised a few questions in my mind.
1) How risky are link wheels, and are some link wheels more risky than others?
2) How many of these web 2.0 sites use no-follows on their links.
3) While these web 2.0 websites may have high PageRank on their homepage, what is the average PageRank on the pages where your links exist?
And as an observation… The term “sandbox” has a different definition inside the SEO industry. Traditionally, the Google sandbox was a 6-9 month holding place where Google would now allow new websites to rank for just about anything until they have shown enough authority to prove they were not a fly-by-night site. This was a big thing around 2003-2005, but isn’t really the case these days.
What you’re talking about with sites not showing up is what used to be referred to as the “supplemental index”. Another “place” where Google would banish sites where they were still indexed, but were either experiencing a penalty, or had no inbound links. They would only show if Google had absolutely no good matches for a query in their regular index – hence the term supplemental index.
Hi Dan,
You ask some pretty complex questions, so I’ll try to be brief when I can (to save you from increased boredom
). Great questions, nevertheless. And an inquisitive mind is a good thing to have if you plan to devote much of your time to writing. 
Some link wheels are definitely more riskier than others. Generally, the more sites and links you’re dealing with, the higher the risk.
The link web, for example, distributes links evenly throughout all Web 2.0 sites and niche sites. So if you’re distributing links across 7 sites, each site will then link to 6 other sites. So many links going to multiple sites at once can put out a red flag, and Google may think you’re trying to game the system. Whereas, if you’re distributing links across 7 sites while using a traditional link wheel, each site will only link to 3 other sites, making the link web about double the risk as far as link wheeling goes.
Personally, I don’t know how anyone can find the time to maintain a link web anyway (if your primary focus is contributing quality content across all of the sites you link to) and still have time for other projects throughout the day. In my honest opinion, as long as you are writing good, information-rich content and aren’t just putting stuff out there for the primary purpose of acquiring links, you should be fine because you are genuinely helping the reader.
For this reason, the majority of the Web 2.0 sites I use offer a money incentive in addition to potential backlinks. That way, even if the backlinking doesn’t work out according to plan, I’m still making money off of the articles that I’m writing – and the money incentive also is an added boost in motivation, allowing me to continue putting my best work out there and not burn out at the same time. And that’s really what you should be doing – writing nothing but your best stuff, no matter who you’re writing for. It’s only fair to those who are taking the time to read your content, and it also increases the likelihood that they’ll want to find out more about you; hence, you get more ongoing direct visits from the sites you write for – which can be an added benefit to only write articles of value.
As for the Web 2.0 sites that I list above, all of them (since the last time I checked) use dofollow links. It wouldn’t make sense to have a Web 2.0 site in the link wheel if it only allowed no-follow backlinks.
Also, each new article that you write for a Web 2.0 site (or any site in general) will start off with a page rank of 0. Honestly, I haven’t been keeping track of page ranks, so I wouldn’t know the average unless I went to each one and looked at each article individually. Though, I suppose it might be a good thing to do if you want to stay on top of things. I’ve just never done so.
On a side note, thanks for letting me know about that slight mix-up by the way. I fixed it and credited you for the input on part 2.
Thanks for the comment, and I hope to see you around!
Christina