Reciprocal link exchanges

As we’ve mentioned in many posts, link popularity (derived from how many significant webpages link to you) is one of the best ways to achieve higher search engine ranking.

However as in most industries, there is a legitimate way to maximise backlinks…and a whole encyclopedia of illicit methods for achieving this. Unfortunately most non-IT savvy individuals and business managers often find it hard to spot the difference between some quick fix solution like an amateur link farm, and genuine legal link building activities. If your interested in some of the basic differences, see this article from WebPro News.

The distinction is an important one, because search engines don’t react too kindly if your site is identified as abusing the system by being involved with links that are not from a genuine source. Penalties range from temporary delisting, to permanent removal from the search results - depending on how deliberate and malicious the attempt to manipulate site popularity is.

Usually meddling with the system has to be fairly extensive to warrant the more drastic punishments such as complete removal from the search engine index, but there have been many cases of individuals being reprimanded who claim to be ‘‘innocently’ involved’ with fraudulent linking activities.

Below is a summarised account of some tips from Tony Subia for an acceptable approach to Reciprocal Linking.

1. Compatibility With Your Website - Seek link exchanges with compatible and complementing websites related to your site’s content and user interest. Relevancy is rewarded by the search engines. For example, links between two real estate agent sites are very compatible.
2. Focus On Gaining & Sending Natural Referrals - Reciprocal link exchange should provide a mutually advantageous marketing connection to users that may be seeking compatibility alignment to satisfy related solutions, needs or desires. For example, a website that sells shoes would be a natural fit to a site that sells socks.
3. Look For Strong Transfer Value - A link from Web Page A to Web Page B is a popularity vote by Page A for Page B. However, all links do not transfer equal value. The greater the link popularity of the ’sending page’, the greater the vote for the ‘receiving page’. So focus on getting links from pages with high popularity, but don’t completely ignore those with lower popularity prestige, because every little link ads up.
4. Avoid Links to Bad Neighborhoods - Links to websites that practice spam methods or free-for-all (FFA) link farms must be avoided. Links to bad quality sites can get your site penalized or banished. It’s often difficult to determine a bad link. Review the coding of reciprocal sites looking closely for spam practices. If you discover such abuses, do not exchange links.
5. Inbound Links Must Be Traceable By a Spider - Verify that all incoming reciprocal links are hard-coded HTML links and that any link partner pages are linked from its home page. There are unscrupulous webmasters that may hide your return link from search engine spiders by creating an ‘“orphaned’ (unconnected) web page or use a JavaScript link, which will not be detectable by a spider and therefore would not transfer link popularity value.
6. Continuously Verify Reciprocal Linking Quality - In an ideal world it would be nice to be able to trust that people will do as they say, but until playing the Lotteries really sanyone’snyones financial troubles then it’s best to assume the world remains imperfect and running a few inconspicuous checks could be wise.