I have some links for back from my competitor sites. They always rank top on Google (1, 2 & 3) and yahoo for a particular keyword. Right now my 50% traffics come from those sites. Although I was not required to give them a reciprocal link but I put their links to my site anyway. Do you think I would get more benefit from Google/Yahoo if I had one way link from them?
one way links from your competetors who are ranked on top 10 for your keyword is certainly benifit you. But you also need other high quality links as well if you want to beat them.
in terms of importance, one-way links should help more compared to reciprocal links, all things being equal
SE prefer one way links, especially from well established sites....it's like a unidirectional vote for your site.
reciprocal links are in a general sense a way of manipulating Googles original way of awarding points for "natural link building" one way links are always going to be worth more but i also have reciprocal links as it can be beneficial for your browsers and you obviously...
I had two sites pretty similiar targeting the same phrase, one has all reciprical links, the other has one way and 3 way links The one with recipricals has more links, but is also gained quite a bit more in google, and gained way more in the other engines So I would say recipricals may be worth less then one ways, but if they are not much less. Of course all the one ways are from directories, linkspages etc. Sources that are considered lower "quality" links
One way links are definitely better. This means that you are getting link benefit (PR) but are not passing any back. Plus, due to rigorous reciprocal link building campaigns by a lot of webmasters, sooner or later Google will start discounting or completely ignoring reciprocal links. So, one way links are definitely better.
Definitely go for the 1 way links. Recriprocal linking can devalue your efforts if you are not very careful.