We prove existence and multiplicity of periodic motions for the forced 2-body problem under conditions of topological character. In the different cases, the lower bounds obtained for the number of solutions are related to the winding number of a curve in the plane, the homology of a space in $\R^3$, the knot type of a curve and the link type of a set of curves. Also, the results are applied to the restricted $n$-body problem.