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What's Wrong With Reciprocal Linking
By Donald Nelson (c) 2007

When the Internet was new to me, I was fascinated by following
links and going to new sites. It was like an adventure. And when
I had my own website the first thing that I wanted to do was to
place my site's links on other sites. I began reciprocal linking
(trading links with other sites) way back then, but 11 years
later things have changed and now I dread getting a "reciprocal
link request" in my email inbox. I have a few pet peeves with
reciprocal linking, as it is practiced today, and here they
are:

1. Most of the Requests are Automated

It used to be flattering to get a link request, knowing that
someone had visited your site and wanted to exchange a link.
These days most of the requests are done with software and it
means that no one has really visited your site. Automation in
itself is not bad, but it leads to all kinds of abuses, and it
prevents you from picking out the good links from the bad. Even
if you have an automated directory to handle link requests,
which is what I installed, you will still be swamped with tons
of link requests.

2.  Most Link Requests are of Extremely Low Quality

The original idea of linking was to provide your own visitors
with quality sites where they could visit next. The links were
provided as a resource. Today, many sites have been set up only
to make money from Adsense and other advertising programs. In
addition, driven by the need to acquire PageRank  many
webmasters went into a link gathering frenzy and sent requests
to any and all sites whether they were related to their site or
not. If a link is to be a resource to visitors of both sites,
then the two sites should somehow be related and the sites
should be of comparable quality. Most reciprocal link requests
fail this test.

3. Links are Buried on Pages Where Human Eyes Will Never See
Them

In addition to being a resource to your own visitors, you want
to exchange links in hopes of getting some targeted traffic back
to your site. It used to be easier; a webmaster would have a
site with say ten different pages and one of his pages would be
a "links" page. On that page he would display 30 or so links.
The link to this page would be prominent in the site's
navigation menu.  You could be assured of getting some
meaningful traffic if your link was placed on this kind of
page.

That has all changed. People now build huge directories of
hundreds of categories, stuffed with pages and pages of links.
It is extremely unlikely that many visitors will drill down
through all the pages and find your site in such a directory.

4. Many of the Link Requests are for "Three Way Links"

I find three-way links "creepy." They work like this, if I link
to site A, then they will give a link to my site originating
from site B. This is done because Google is supposed to value
one-way links more than reciprocal links. I can understand this.
If someone links to you without asking you and doesn't request a
reciprocal link it means that your site is really good and this
is why Google values true one-way links. However, the three-way
links proposed by many people are just an attempt to trick the
search engines; they are not true one-way links. Sooner or later
Google will get wise to such schemes and this kind of effort
will yield little benefit to the linking websites.

In addition, I dislike this kind of linking arrangement because
you first have to check out who you are linking to, and then you
are faced with checking another site that is going to link to
you. Usually the site where the link to you will be placed is
some kind of strange directory, a link-farm.

This is the state of reciprocal linking today. I delete most
requests coming into my inbox, and do mass deleting on my
automated systems as well. Now I don't want to end on a negative
note so here are a few suggestions on how to get quality
incoming links without adding another reciprocal link request to
the flood that is already out there:

1. Make Your Site so Cool that People Will Link to You Without
Asking

People come to the Internet to solve a problem, find a solution
and get information. If you can make your website a true
resource and a great place where visitors can get the
information that they need, then it will not go unnoticed. Even
if you have a commercial e-commerce site, it is possible to add
reviews, articles and information.  This additional information
will help your own customers and will be a resource for the
entire web. Who knows? Maybe one day you will check your
referrer logs and see that Wikipedia is linking to you. This is
the goal, but it will take some work to achieve it.

2.  Get Involved in Blogs and Forums that are Related to Your
Field of Expertise

You can learn something from forums and blogs and you can
contribute something as well. You can usually leave your url
when you make a comment or a posting. If you offer solid advice,
you will get a good online reputation and become known as an
expert in your field. This newfound recognition as an expert,
combined with links from these blogs and forums will be worth
much more than low quality reciprocal links.

3. Get into Article Marketing

Article marketing means that you will write articles about your
field of interest and distribute them for publication on other
websites, blogs and ezines with a link back to your site. Each
time your article is published on a website you get a one-way
link to your site. As with most good things, this method has
been pounced upon by Internet marketers and the net is flooded
with a lot of low-quality articles. However, if you produce
meaningful articles, you can still get a lot of benefit by
distributing your articles.

4. Do Judicious Reciprocal Linking

There is nothing wrong with the idea of websites trading links.
However, if you are going to do it, then only link to a site that
you think is a good one or has some value for your web visitors.
Make sure that your link will be placed on a page that has the
potential of sending you some traffic. Make your request with an
email that clearly shows that you are a living and breathing
human being and not a robot.

So, instead of adding to the spam-like flood of reciprocal link
requests, go about building your own content and start using
more reliable methods of increasing the number of incoming links
to your site.
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Donald Nelson is a search engine optimization specialist. His
SEO company A1-Optimization provides affordable search engine
optimization (http://www.a1-optimization.com), website
copywriting, article marketing and other website promotion
services.
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