About Reciprocal Linking

from http://www.webmasterworld.com/link_development/3932708.htm

It seems all the reciprocal linking is frowned up on these days. Getting good quality natural links is tough these days.

As the wise Yoda once said, “You must unlearn what you have learned…”

Engineers from some of the major search engines have made statements in the past regarding excessive reciprocal linking because some webmasters were abusing it. Abuse means high volume (hundreds a day) with low relevant sites. They didnt say “don’t reciprocal link”. Many have clarified “its ok to have reciprocal links” and “reciprocal links occur naturally on the web”.

It’s easy for self proclaimed experts to say “get one way quality links”. Easier said than done.

There is nothing wrong with reciprocals if you follow published guidelines which means maintain high relevancy and very low (natural) volume.

Fortune 500′s reciprocal link every day. A major soda manufacturer links to and promotes a major airline and vice versa.

There is alot of FUD on the web warning you against reciprocal links. Most of that was written years ago when reciprocals were in the high abuse category. Or its written recently by those with their own agenda to sell you on a four figure a month “seo package”.

These days, the warnings have been heeded and most experienced webmasters know they can exchange links with quality sites without any fear of being penalized. Those same webmasters know from looking at their analytics that the links generate traffic and have a branding function as well.

Yes, there are brand new webmasters hitting the web every day who unfortunately have read the wrong thing somewhere and go berzerk with high volume low relevancy reciprocals. They will learn eventually. Try not to take it the wrong way when one of their long winded link exchange requests hits your inbox. We are all new at this at one point or another.

If you don’t abuse them, reciprocals still have their place and will always exist on the WWW where cross promotion is ever present and natural.

I can get a brand new website to rank with just a few dozen quality reciprocals in five months. They do still work as an SEO function. You just have to know what pitfalls to avoid.

Question 1:

I’ve been roaming the boards for a couple of days and find this reply to be quite useful.

So what you (cnvi) are saying is that it is OK to exchange links as long as they relevant to the topic/website? How does that play into the Google PR though? Would cross linking to other lower PR websites act as detriment to your own website? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

Question 2:

So what you (cnvi) are saying is that it is OK to exchange links as long as they relevant to the topic/website?

Answer:

Correct. If the link opportunity is relevant, get the link.

Question 3:

How does that play into the Google PR though?

Answer:

Forget completely about PR. Make linking decisions based on what benefits your end user, not how you think its going to affect PR. Remember all new websites start with low PR and a low PR website today may very well be a higher PR website next year.

Question:

Would cross linking to other lower PR websites act as detriment to your own website?

Answer:

No. Keep in mind the search engines are crawling all of your links and making calculations based on the whole of your site. If you link to only high PR websites and your RLR (reciprocal link ratio) is 100%, it shows the search engines exactly why you are making link decisions. 100% RLR may be perceived as manipulation.

You want to link to sites that have low PR. You want to link to websites that don’t link back to yours. And you do want to link to sites that link back to yours. You want a good even mix so that your activity is perceived as natural and not manipulative or scheming.

A site with a RLR of 40% and 50 reciprocal links will rank. It’s not as complicated as the four figure a month seo expert would lead you to believe.

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There is also a case for educating SEO/SEM firms themselves, as almost every week I receive emails from SEO outsourcing companies, generally from India. The majority of these emails offer the same tired old submission services, including the outmoded reciprocals. On one occasion I decided to try them out