Why I Am Sick of Reciprocal Linking
By
Donald Nelson, copyright 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 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 of 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 have sent requests to any and all sites whether they are
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 is 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.
Donald
Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. He has
been working on the Internet since 1995, and is currently the
director of A1-Optimization (http://www.a1-optimization.com),
a firm providing low cost search engine optimization,
submission and web promotion services.
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