Link Train or Link Spam?

A new bandwagon just rolled into the SEO world, one called the "link train". It works similar to the notorious chain letter schemes. It starts with a list of links to a couple websites, consist of a theme (The Charity Meme) and continues to grow like a snowball effect as the link train gets copied to more blogs. Just like the "Send this e-mail to 10 of your friends, or else you will have bad luck forever", this link trains grow exponentially as webmasters and bloggers try and hop on the link train list to generate back links to their site.

What benefit does a link train do for a site? In the search engine world, creating back links is essential for gaining respect from search engines to be placed in search engines results.

One criterion Google looks for in links is differentiating anchor text, example: This is Anchor Text. If you participate in a link train, the backlink to your site will contain the same anchor text since it is being copied over and over. John Chow, a professional blogger about making money online devised a scheme to create backlinks to his site with the anchor text, "how to make money". Thousands of links started to pour in, and Google viewed all these links, with the same anchor text, as link spam, and banned John Chows site from the Google index, even for his own John Chow's name.

Google has incredible software engineers working on solving problems to detect link spam. I can almost guarantee the are aware of these new link train schemes popping up, and are already adjusting their algorithm to make sure these link trains don't affect search rankings. Google results return the most relevant content to a user, however, these posts create nothing more than duplicate content, and create no useful information to a user. Often times blog posts contain the same exact title, same description, and almost the same link train list. This will surely trigger a red flag in Google's algorithm, and all link value will be lost. Check out Google's Policy on Link Schemes at Google's webmaster center.

For bloggers and webmasters looking for the easy way out, don't try these new link train schemes. Link trains will only hurt the respect of your site by creating spammy links coming from duplicate content sites. As a case study, I participated in one link train scheme, and my technorati authority went from 7 to 26 in a day. However, what is worse, getting banned from Google for link spam, or having a low Technorati rank? The best way to get back links is through relevant informative content and creating relationships. Check out the search engine journal f you need advice on creating quality link baitingcontent.

Technorati Tags: SEO, Link Train, link spam,