Reciprocal Links - whats the verdict?

We must get at least 5 requests a day for Reciprocal Links, eg

"we love your website, you add our link and we will link to you" kind of thing or "you must link from your homepage" yeah, of course we will.. for a fee

It surprises me that so many people keep hammering the reciprocal links.

My understanding, and happy to be corrected by any SEO gurus is that web links are the currency of authority in the eyes of the search engines.

In otherwords, if website abc.com has great content, people will feel the urge to talk about it, recommend it and link to it, so this site then becomes an authoritive site, is given a nice bit of Google Pagerank, and is rewarded by a higher placement in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

If site xyz.com says hello abc.com, I'll link to you if you link to me, then Mr Google says your not the respected authority we thought you were, so we won't reward you with better placings in the search results.

Ok, very over simplified, and idealistic maybe, and I don't doubt for a minute that reciproical links can be displayed without being punished, as long as you have natural and oneway links to back them up, but a lot of people do seem to just go for reciprocal links.

In my mind, this isn't a well forumulated or balanced SEO plan. I would aim for good content to generate natural links (link bait), sign up with a few directories or other paid links, do some blogging, and reply to blogs (with do follow links), and maybe some article marketing.

Googles guidelines say this about links:

...some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site's ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

• Links intended to manipulate PageRank
• Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
• Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")
• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

So maybe have a think when embarking on your linking campaigns!

Be interested to hear anyone elses opinions or experiences

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Steve

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From personal experince, I was working for a company about a year ago they had a small link page with around 3000 links so maybe it wasnt so small.

Anyways I went through them and had noticed loads of them were either not relevant or didnt link back.

I trimed the whole directory down to around 267 links With some good Blogging as well they got from pos 10 to pos 1 within 5 months.

I think it really depends on a huge range of factors

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Steve

I have my own theory - let me try and explain

Every now and then some poor person gets done for downloading loads and loads of films and music makes the news and for a few weeks some people move away from doing it in case they some how get caught.

So the news of an implied threat can be quite persuasive if used correctly.

I had a person contact me the other day to offer me a range of PR6 and PR5 websites for sale, a quick check showed me they only had one link back to them, so was a good old fashion case of google being duped.

I think the key is in the word "guidelines" I see many many sites that fly in face of what google say is acceptable - do I think links from link farms etc hurt - yes do I see sites that rank well using such methods - yes

So in-conclusion - who knows!

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Think you could be right, does seem to be an element of scare mongering.

Does seem unfair if someone can bombard the t'internet via spam asking for recip or 3 way links, or use link farms, then get rewarded with decent serps and PR.

But do you risk the wrath of the mighty Google? Johhny spammer doesn't care, but would you endanger your new online baby?

Link building has to be by far one of the most boring, timeconsuming but vital of all online jobs, and have outsourced it myself on several occasions, but never been impressed with the results versus the cost. Just seem to end up on endless scripted web directories that all look the same, with rows of uncordinated links.

Like everyone, I'm always looking for an easier way to do things, but tend to leave linkbuilding now to a list of decent directories, forums, spurge of Press release articles, then let the rest grow naturally.

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Steve

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I've pondered this idea, and have had many conflicting views, some people have said that although it may help with your rankings why would you want to send someone away from your website to buy something somewhere else? This kind makes sense, what I want to know is if it does make much of an impact before I start accepting links from others?

Mama C

Hi Mama C, in an ideal world, the only links you want, are inbound links to you. Theres no argument these will help your rankings, but other than paying for links, (directories, marketing etc) these are hard to obtain, so you need to rely on good content, and let these build up naturally over time.

As for recip linking, I'd be more cautious. Do you really want a "links/resources" page with hundreds of unrelated links on them? There value is open to debate, but if you do go that route, then resources type pages get little traffic, so you wouldn't lose much.

If you are talking about putting everyones links on your home page, then I'd be a lot more cautious. These are the holy grail of inbound links, so be sure your happy with the deal before agreeing to swop links. You normally get "I'll put you on 2 PR4 websites if you put my link on your home page".

These can be (but not always!)shady SEO outfits who have thrown up some tacky sites, but have managed to get some good pagerank, purely for this purpose. Chances are the PR will drop off over time and the sites will degrade.

Key thing is, google and the rest know you have the power to decide who to link to, and this is what you will be judged on. So always check out any prospective link partner. If your not happy, walk away

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Steve

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To sum up, if a well known site e.g. BBC links to your site, then that adds value to your site in terms of page ranking credibility.

However, links that are of value with meaningful content will, IMHO, be far better than a load of reciprocal links with newunheardof.com websites.

Just my twopenneth!

Can you reccomend any press release websites or is this top secret?

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No secret

uk.prweb.com, google news and ezinearticles (before the farmer/panda update!) but everyone's got their favourites. Have had content writers blast them out on different networks, but don't know which ones.

Alby used to be the main man when it comes to press release sites, if he's still around...

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Steve

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I follow the same; good old content usually comes through strong for me if well written and promoted well via some good websites.

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