Link Schemes
Because links act as recommendations, there is a market in fake ones. Leafline's inbox shows the range: "Guest posts on 50 sites, do-follow, ₹200 each." "Let's swap links, I run 30 sites." "Our software builds 10,000 backlinks a month." Every one of these is a link scheme, and every one puts the site that uses it at risk.
The rule
Links must be earned or labelled, never bought as votes.
A link scheme is any link made mainly to influence rankings rather than to help readers. Search engines' spam policies describe the common forms:
- Buying or selling links that pass ranking credit: money, products or services exchanged for an unlabelled link.
- Excessive link exchanges: "you link to me, I'll link to you", run as a system across many sites.
- Large-scale guest posting or article campaigns stuffed with keyword-rich links back to the author's site.
- Automated link building: software or services that create links in bulk in forums, comments and profiles.
- Networks of sites that exist only to link to each other or to one site they are meant to boost.
- Required links: forcing a link into a widget, a contract or a product without letting the other side label it.
What is not a scheme: a paid link labelled rel="sponsored" (or nofollow), an honest mention from a business partner, or a link a journalist chose to add because your data was useful. Payment and partnership are not the problem in themselves. Disguising a bought or traded link as a freely given recommendation is.
Search engines are good at spotting manipulative links and often simply ignore them. So money spent on schemes frequently buys nothing at all, and a large enough scheme can bring a penalty from a human reviewer as well.
The shortcut
For any link deal, ask: "Was anything of value exchanged for this link?" If yes, it must be labelled sponsored or nofollow. If the other side refuses to label it, the deal is a scheme.
Guest posts at ₹200 each
Money for unlabelled, keyword-stuffed links on 50 unrelated sites. A scheme. Decline.
Drills
Answer fast — trust the rule.
Which of these links is acceptable under spam policies?
Leafline sends a blogger a free plant in return for a review with a link. Does the link need a label?
Why might a big link-buying campaign achieve nothing, even without a penalty?
What is the shortcut question for any link deal?
Remember
- Links must be earned or labelled, never bought as votes.
- Anything of value exchanged →
sponsoredornofollow, or walk away. - The trap: believing a scheme is safe because it is "only guest posts" or "only a swap".