Ever since Google revolutionized the Internet-searchmarket with the inclusion of external factors – such as amount and quality of inbound links – there have been attempts to “rebuild” these factors.

Lets start at the beginning: Back in the day, I mean really really long ago it started with the (automatic) entry into the then numerous guestbooks and “free-for-all”-linklists to artificially create the needed link-power for positions. When Google detected this method we can assume it to be the first countermeasure in the history of linkbuilding: pages with names like “guestbook.html” or “links.htm” did simply neither inherit PageRank nor any other advantages anymore.

Google's marketshare grew constantly, web-catalogs like that of Yahoo lost more and more importance and searchengineoptimization grew in significance. Automated link-trading networks like LinkVault originated quickly. You integrated some (PHP)-code in your site which showed links and received links from other sites in return. Once this grew to a size which was noticeable to Google and had bearings on the quality of the SERPs, they started to take action against this and are still doing so today.

Shortly thereafter came the flood of webcatalogs. In nearly all cases these were not drawn up to give users orientation on the Internet but to serve as backlink-slings for the searchengineoptimization. Often in combination with a backlink-duty, both sides were banking on a profit: the webcatalog-operators on a high PageRank for their catalogs (which would then be sold on eBay and the like) and the sites which registered on the necessary links for a proper positioning. Sadly they reckoned without the host – Google is depreciating webcatalogs by the dozen at the moment.

If we look at these three examples in the last six years we can clearly see the link: whenever a possibility to “simulate” backlinks has become big enough for Google to fear negative consequences on the quality of their index they will – successfully – counteract. It is not a question if such trickery will be noticed but rather when it will be busted. If we now take a look at the recent trends for backlink collection (articledirectories and presscoverage-portals) the conclusion should be obvious.

[a post which has been in the blog's draftbox for month (as can be seen in the ID) and which has, in the meantime, been partially overtaken by reality (take a look at the current development with the articledirectories), I still wish to publish it]