A link wheel is a system used by search engine optimizers to increase the “link juice” of their main web site. When search engine crawlers rank a site, they take into account the amount and quality of sites that link to it. The more quality sites that link, the better the site’s link juice.
Optimizers can take advantage of this by creating a link wheel. Simply put, a link wheel is a collection of web pages set up to link towards a separate web site.
Usually, a webmaster starts with a single web site that he wants to optimize. Then, he creates several pages on web sites that host user account pages, such as blogs and social networking sites. After optimizing the primary web site, the owner creates content for the supporting wheel sites. Then, he links the wheel sites to the primary site and usually one other wheel site. Linking them together one by one creates a link wheel.
The method is effective because not only do the wheel sites create link juice directly for the main site, they also create juice for each other, which trickles down to create even more juice for the main page.
Using a link wheel is generally frowned upon by search engines. If the system is abused too much, they can usually pick up on it and punish the sites accordingly. Because of this, they should only be used in moderation.
For a little more about link wheels, check http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=5d58a7d8d4202170&hl=en
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