It seems that influence of a link is comprised of their awareness of the cliques discourse and reputation among the clique members. The algorithm on the other hand seems to latch on to traffic. There is a room for a wedge here.

Perhaps the algorithm can be defeated by employing a few extra "link" accounts (either sock puppets or simply ardent followers) with a shared reputation (a shared brand).

On other words a link between two cliques could be held by a special kind of clique.