Link Laundering

Link Laundering is a sophisticated black hat SEO technique that involves obscuring the artificial or paid nature of backlinks by routing them through one or more intermediary websites. Similar to financial money laundering, the goal is to make manipulative links appear natural by creating layers of separation between the link buyer and the final backlink. In practice, an operator might pay for a link on a site, which then links to a buffer site, which in turn links to the money site. This creates a chain where the final link appears organic. More complex schemes involve tiered link building where each level of the pyramid uses different link types and sources. Google's algorithms have become increasingly sophisticated at detecting these patterns by analyzing link graph topology, temporal patterns, and content relationships across linked sites. The technique is considered a serious violation of Google's guidelines and can result in severe penalties for all sites involved in the laundering chain.