Link exchange

[hanusoftware1]

Link exchange is the popular method of increasing page rank and generating maximum incoming traffic. But generating enough links is not as easy as it seems. There are many important things you should take care of before starting your link exchange campaign. Before discussing link exchange tips, we should understand exactly what a link exchange is. Link exchange is simply the exchange of your links with others. Every Webmaster wants the maximum number of visitors coming to his site for obvious reasons; his revenue and site popularity both increase with the increased number of visitors. But the basic question remains on how a Webmaster will be able to generate enough links coming to his site? There are two popular methods for creating the targeted links, one is manual and the other is the use of automated linking programs. Whatever method you choose for your linking campaign, remember that each has its own pros and cons. For instance, manual linking may take months to complete and automatic linking can result in untargeted and irrelevant links.

[Albert Wiersch]

I occasionally get what appear to be automated email requests to link to a site but they imply that a human has actually viewed my site and thought it was great. I typically just delete these.

The quality of incoming links is very important.

Simply having reciprocal links may not be a good idea. Search engines are always getting more sophisticated in detecting artificial linking patterns designed to boost or increase search engine rankings.

This is a good source of information:
http://www.searchenginenews.com/

I hope to have time to implement some of the suggestions there in the near future!

[jackslatess]

Hello,

Automated link exchanges are not good, I don't even care to read those messages because when you ask them for to place link they don't respond.

[GeeJay]

Hello guys,

I saw the posting and I have to read what you guys have to say ~or what is it that you believe~ about this topic. You will have to excuse me for being bold, but there is waaaaaay much more to exchanging links that the simplistic statements that I read. With good intent, please, allow me to continue being bold.

Huge number of web site owners with rather simplified and shallow knowledge have a VERY strong tendency to believe that QUANTITY of links is "The Way" to achieve top rankings which in turn ~they continue believing~ will make their lives much better. We must forgive their simple and not fully developed minds.

A man who is the exact oppostite of those poor guys is named Albert Wiersch. He much more realistically described a situation when he typed "Search Engines are always getting more sophisticated..." You bet they are ! - Search Engines' guys want QUALITY !

For those of you with a more developed intellect, I will give you a little story in the hope that you guys better comprehend where we are all standing on when it comes to exchanging links. It is NOT a complete description of the ENTIRE situation, but it should suffice to give you a glance at what the guys behind Search Engines want from every serious web site owner who has the brain to deserve top rankings. Here is the story:

You come to a party in someone else's home. It is the home of very important people. They do not know you nor they have any interest in you. The hosts' names are Mr. Google, Mr. Yahoo, and Mr. MSN. However, they have been well educated by fine parents; and all three will come to you and will greet you with a smile and will shake your hand shortly after you walk in their party. You better make sure that you are well dressed by ensuring that the HTML code in EACH AND EVERY web page is impecable and fully compliant.

Then, they engage in a casual chat with you and want to know who you are. You better make sure that your web site is not about trashy products, that it does not have a trillion graphics and it is NOT blotted with a ton and a half of HTML code, that web pages link to each other in a judicious and senseful way which includes ONE web page dedicated to have a REASONABLE number of links to other IMPORTANT web pages, and that all those silly ~but needed~ web pages such as Contact Us, About Us, Sign Up For Our Newsletter ~and the some many other web pages like those~ have been placed in a folder dedicated just to them AND the "robots.txt" file tell the three important guys to not waste their time visiting that folder.

Finally, theose three guys want to know WHO KNOWS YOU? If you answer "The guy accross the street" or "Someone who sent me a request to exchange links" or any web site that is un-important in those three guys' eyes, you just placed yourself in a VERY poor situation telling them "No one of importance knows me." On the other hand, if tell them "These two men with highly reputable web sites with PageRank 6 know me since the past three years, AND these other few but very fine web site owners with Page Rank 5 also know me for some time, AND the links they gave me are NOT located in a web page together with lots and lots of other links but only 15 or 20 links pointing to web sites in my same topic" you just told Mr. Google, Mr. Yahoo, and Mr. MSN that ~although few people know you~ they ALL are fine people who also are present in their party.

Needless to say, you wisely presented those three guys with well written text used in those rather few links given to you, such text is NOT the same in all of the links, and the text uses your well thought-out key-phrase which match your wisely orchestrated optimization meant to satisfy those guys in EACH of your IMPORTANT web pages.

Yes, I know. It is a loooong posting, but if you could understand what you just read, you have a very good chance to make it to the top; and if you do, I'll see you there.



GeeJay

[omnireso]

Hi GeeJay,

This is a very good story that can help newcomers in the SEO field.

Having said that, the more experienced ones will find their way through various techniques. Let's say that the party doesn't carry big hats like the highly ranked PR of your story, you will have to cope with trusted-enough websites. And PR is not paramount any more (since Google's MAYDAY and the end of the Google Dance's) but just another tool to help forging one's opinion about a given website. But hey, just my 2 cents

[orangesquared]

I see that there are innumerable opinions on this subject. I have been on MANY webinars for SEO trng. lately - many about backlinking - and even the webinar hosts disagree. A couple of things I believe I have found out for myself lately are these:
1. Backlink does not have to be relevant to your subject for it to help your seo
2. It is not important to limit your backlinks to just a few a day. I don't think Google will penalize us for getting a lot of backlinks each day.

What's your thought on these points?

[masterresetcom]

I'm new to this link exchange, is there a list of reputable link exchange programs out there that will help in SEO for my site?

[divatz]

@orangesquared

1.Backlink does not have to be relevant to your subject for it to help your SEO.

While it's true that any back-link that comes from a website/blog with high Google rankings will help your site, if you get such a link from an authority in your domain it will help you much more than a regular back-link.

2.It is not important to limit your backlinks to just a few a day. I don't think Google will penalize us for getting a lot of backlinks each day.

I think this is true. Why ? Well if, for example, you have a Google News approved website and you have decent activity you'll receive a lot of links from sites that just copy your content. So if Google doesn't penalize you for this how will it penalize you for getting backlinks from other sources. You probably don't want to exaggerate though.

Hope this helps.

[Albert Wiersch]

This is an interesting article about SEO, including link exchanges:
How Many SEO Consultants Actually Know What They're Talking About?

Here's what it says about link exchange:

We were pleased to see that 48.1% of respondents advised strongly against trading links with any other site based solely on email solicitation. 44.4% responded “yes” or “maybe” while cautioning PEPS to be selective on sites to trade links with. Unfortunately, 7.4% of respondents encouraged PEPS to exchange links with other sites that ranked well.

So be careful with link exchange... I would not do it except in rare cases when there is a good match/partnership with a relevant and "high quality" site.

[nicholasstorm]

Hi,

Let me make my 2 cents straight forward. After Panda & Penguin, including the regular algo changes such as the most recent EMD, simply avoid link exchanges. The "if I help you you'll help me" model simply is a NOGO. To me (and many others I read content from) there is simply no value in Google's eyes from LE's. The ONLY value recognized and appreciated is natural linking - i.e. linking by choice. LE's are NOT that.

Cheers,

Nich
___________
Star interview questions

[WHUK_Barb]

Link exchange was always considered a grey hat seo technique, but due to its simplicity, many webmaster started exchanging links on a large scale. This hampered the natural methodology hence caused Google to show inappropriate results in its SERPs. Which means if an individual searched for something, they'd be shown some irrelevant results, which was a total failure to Google core purpose.

But now after making changes to its algo., we see that the results are more appropriate and something that relates appropriately to the users search query. So, if you are still doing a link exchange, STOP IT ! and concentrate more on building natural links from niche sources.

[alman]

Automated link exchanges is dead. All those who use automated software to create tons of links spammming blog comments or forums after recent google updates no longer work. Penguin update put an end to this outrage.Google's idea is to limit the people who deal with SEO and remain little that do work ethic so be careful with which site make links exchange. Only with trustworthy and relevant to our content site.

[Lou]

Automated link exchanges is dead.

Good comment spam blocking also helps. Thank goodness!