A few established SEO practitioners run this software that maps out a site’s backlink structure.  These maps look very interesting, to say the least.  Some look like a Carlos Castaneda flashback while others are so damn predictable it’s scary–specially for the clients of such SEO “expertise”.  Predictablity, in SEO, is the home of FAIL. Google routinely destroys the PR and link marketability of people who sell or buy links.  That’s why SEO “flowers” are so dangerous…

What are SEO “Flowers”?

Quick background:  Linkwheels are Web 2.0 pages/blogs that are built specifically to pump up the Page rank of and pump link juice to a target site.  Think of it as an amplifier for SEO.  There’s many “Get 10000000000 hits per day” huckster ebooks and sales pages pushing this concept.  However, it’s very easy to do and anyone with some time on their hands for page building, content copywriting, and mapping can build these.  The typical structure is SITE A links to SITE B and Target site, SITE B links to SITE C and target site, etc.  It doesn’t take much imagination to see that this typical link map looks like a FLOWER.  Indeed, that’s how it looks on a link mapping application.  Something like this:

While flowers are great for enhancing the ambiance of most rooms or as gifts for the object of your affection, they are DEADLY in the SEO realm.  Easy to track (and easy to ban) link structures give the kiss of death to any SEO strategy.  Make sure you DIVERSIFY your linking structure.  There mustn’t be any readily discernible pattern in your link map or else your network and your target site might look like a daisy that got crushed under Google’s boot heel.  Not a pleasant sight.

Photo credits:  law_keven