Google has stated that you shall not exchange links simply to manipulate the serps. OK! Got it! From time to time I get a site that is related to my niche, good PR, not too many outgoing links and I wonder if limited-very limited link exchanges within your niche are Ok to exchange or not? I still see a lot of UK sites asking for these reciprocal links, not that that makes it good or bad but do you have any advice?
Occasionally we do it. We stopped doing is a main method years ago, not because we didn't think it worked. We had trouble keeping up with tracking all the links. After you got your first 100 you tended to lose them as fast as you could create them. We now do rec linking with very relevant sites and pretty much only with homepage links. This means we often get good traffic too. Rec linking very often happens naturally. It's the great big ugly pointless directories that google can spot and filter out easily.
not many people are doing link exchange these days but there are some who are still doing it. i think most people who use link exchange for backlinks dont know that it doesn;t offer as much benefit as it did in the past. DP has a sub-forum dedicated to link exchange where you can spend some time to get a n idea about the link exchange trend
A lot of people are still doing link exchanges, most of them stick to three-way link exchanges though.
I am new to the seo game and have been focusing on reciprocal link exchanges. I am glad to be able to stop tracking them as it seems they are not worth the amount of energy expended. Are there any suggestions as to what I could do in order to gain page rank and traffic to a site without reciprocal links?
Reciprocal linking still works, but make sure you only exchange links with relevant and quality sites. It's a tricky method and you really need to track your links regularly.
There are of course a lot of people still do reciprocal link exchange. But I think one way link is better everyone should stick to that Or go for 3-way link exchange for a smaller project.
Link exchanges still help, and are still worth while. It's never a bad idea to exchange links wiht another site in your niche, helps the user.
To be honest, I've studied the backlinks for almost all my competitors in my sector, and the vast majority have got only either: reciprocal links or cross links from their own sites on the same ip (like, 10-15 sites all cross linked on every page). Both google no-nos, and yet I see them all top of the serps with good pr. know of one competitor who has got a group of 7 sites or so to page 1 in the serps for their keywords with just crosslinks from their own sites. For the industry I'm in at least, google doesn't seem to mind reciprocals.
I use linkmarket for link exchange. Basically, I let linkmarket track all the links and I do get notified if there is a broken link.
Personally I still use link exchanges as a way to get relevant backlinks, but in no way is it even close to my main marketing strategy. For that I tend to spend more time with the social bookmarkming, forum posting, and article submissions. Like most though I tend to recieve at least 3-5 email weekly requesting a link exchange, if they have a good site that does not have to many outgoing links and is relevant I usually exchange with them.
Hello, Google don't like the sites which do link exchange. Google thinks that you are selling your PR by exchanging link. so any one should not do link exchange. If there are a lot link of other site on your site then Google may penalize your site. You van do one way linking. You can also do three way linking if all of the three sites are on different host but not link exchange.
Usually one of the first things you do since you are linking to similar sites to your niche. Depending on number of competitors/similar sites, you will typically be limited after a while unlike other forms of link building. Also, keep eye to make sure you are getting links back over time so you are not giving away one-way links to dishonest sites.
I may not be as experienced as many hear but I have exchanged a lot of links (it has been my main strategy for the last 3m) I am top 5 on page 1 on google for my main key phrase, it has worked for me. That said I am now trying to focus on building more 1 way links. All reciprocals are with sites with very relevant content. I wouldn't bother with link market unless you don't care who you exchange with, in that case link market has all the random sites you could ever want to exchange with!
I still exchange links from time to time. I don't go out of my way to get them anymore but if someone wants to trade links, and the site is relevant, I will do so.