Thu Jan 24 08:03:22 PST 2019

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The Limits of Reciprocal Linking
As your time becomes more valuable and you learn more, sometimes it is cheaper
to create tools or ideas that will build authoritative links instead of manually going
after low-quality link exchanges.
There are a variety of link exchange networks. A few of the more popular ones are
Link Market, Links4Trade, LinksManager, and Link Metro. Some of these
networks may help you save time, but do not look for them to be the be-all and
end-all solution to your marketing needs. Most of the sites listed in link exchange
hubs are garbage. I would not join one of the automated link exchange networks
with any site I was serious about running long term.
Link networks still suffer from the problem mentioned on June 26, 2000 when
Brett Tabke closed the Buddy Links program:
You must ask yourself why sites would join BL in the first place?
Because they couldn?t get listed in the search engines. That left
us at times ?bottom? feeding.
Do not limit yourself to being stuck in networks.
I tend to view the web as a whole as my link pool because if you are willing to work
hard enough and create the right content, you can get almost anyone to link to you.
We Build Pages made a query combination tool that can also be used to find link
sources by tracking various searches on different search engines.
The problem with relying on reciprocal links is that is has been abused. Some
unscrupulous people have e-mailed competitors? link partners asking them to
remove links. In order to do this, they spoofed the ?e-mail from? address to make
it look like their competitor sent the e-mail. If you trade links, you should do so
with trusted sources and ensure they trust you as well.
Keep in mind that since reciprocal links tend to be in virtually hidden sections of
sites chuck full of links that most of them do not carry much weight. Also, if you
link to off-topic resources, quality sites might be less likely to link to your site.
Greg Boser recently pointed out how ineffective most reciprocal link exchange
networks are on his blog: http://www.webguerrilla.com/linking/the-truth-about-reciprocal-
link-networks/.
Jim Boykin mentioned that the fact that link exchange sections are typically tucked
away in a corner that is not heavily referenced from external sources. This also
means that smart search algorithms are not going to place much trust on them,
especially if the pages follow the footprints of a typical link exchange page.