Reciprocal linking for SEO - Google’s new “rules”

Google has recently changed their “Google Webmaster Guidelines” in a bid to “communicate more effectively with webmasters”, no biggy I hear you say. Well the change on the guidelines could have a significant impact on people that rely heavily on reciprocal links. It’s no secret to anyone that has delved into the world of SEO that all kinds of linking techniques are seen as somewhat questionable by Google, unless of course somebody has “naturally” linked to you (without you requesting it).

Reciprocal links were very effective in their heyday, back in the early naughties where you could basically rank in Google for primary keywords simply by asking people to link to you if you linked back to them. Obviously, as with any link the anchor text is very important and this is a big advantage of reciprocal linking, ability to control anchor text.

However now, Google has changed the wording in the guidelines to “excessive reciprocal linking…”, so does this signal a change in the algorithm to heavily discount reciprocal links? Or is it Google just trying to spell it out a bit clearer to webmasters??

My guess is that Google is trying to say everything in moderation, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. For example a site that has only reciprocal links pointing at it probably won’t rank for any competitive keyword, and if that’s not the case at the moment it probably will be soon. If all your links are reciprocals, I would suggest investing some time in diversifying your link profile with links from other sources.