Link doping in search engine optimization refers to the effect and practice of embedding a large number of unwarranted hyperlinks on a website, in exchange for reciprocal linking. It is mainly used when describing blogs, link doping typically implies that a person hyperlinks to websites he or she has never visits, in return for a position on the website’s blogroll, for the only purpose of inflating the obvious popularity of his or her own website. Since the search algorithms of numerous web directories as well as search engines rely only on the number of hyperlinks to a website to determine its significance or influence, link doping can effect in a high placement or ranking for the felonious website.

Initially used in an article published in Sobriquet Publication and on Blogcritics.org, link doping has been puzzled with the related practice of extreme hyper linking, also identified as “link whoring”. While the two phrase may be used interchangeably to illustrate gratuitous linking, link doping carries the additional implication of deliberately striving to reach a certain level of achievement for one’s website without having earned it through solid work.