This question has always puzzled webmasters link building campaigns. After Google and other search engines started cracking down on the mass link exchanges between websites, there were talks of using reciprocal linking to push rankings up as possibly a useless strategy of link building. So how effective are link exchanges anyway?

Check List For Link Exchanges

Whether it is a link exchange or not, you should always be looking after your visitors first. If you have organized a link exchange with another website, first ask yourself the following questions:

1/ Is that site really worth checking out? Some sites are done so poorly, you would immediately know that it was done by an amateur or it could simply be a spammy website for link exchange purposes. Could even class some website as visual diarrhea.

2/ Is the content on the other website already available on your own site? When building websites, you should be continually adding content to add value to your niche market. If another website, however, has content that would definitely help your visitors but is not directly competing with your website, product or services, then why not link to them. There is no point linking to a site that focuses on the exact same niche or product as you do when you can cover the same content on your own site ie. Nike shoes would never do a link exchange with Adidas shoes would they?

3/ Why would the link be helpful for your visitors? websites can’t always cover every little detail about everything (unless you own Wikipedia). In most cases, a webmasters site probably focuses on one topic. For example, I could cover various aspects of SEO, PPC, affiliate marketing, Google adsense etc, but I wouldn’t be covering many topics dealing with HTML, javascript, and ajax; although all are very much related and needed for online marketing, they aren’t exactly “search engine marketing hints” topics. Sites like W3Schools Online would be a perfect link for my visitors.

The thought process here should be “if the site is worth linking to, then link to them”. Whether the other site links back to you or not should not be the issue. If you do get the link back, then great, good for your link popularity.

There is a post at webmasters world discussing a slight change in Google’s webmaster guidelines. Google basically discusses in their guidelines that reciprocal link exchange schemes should be avoided and have now clarified that “excessive” link exchange schemes should be avoided. Really, there is no need to nit pick what Google has written. You decide yourself what is worth linking to for your visitors sake, and not try to manipulate search engines.

SEO, which is pretty much manipulating search engines search results, is of course necessary, but by having a website with good content and valuable information for everyone, other websites should link to you naturally. So…Is there any value in reciprocal link exchanges?? If its valuable to your visitors, then YES, do the link exchange.