I have a domain listed in BOTW. They have a link back image that can be placed on your website to show you are listed by BOTW. If I placed this image link on a sidebar it will appear on every page of my website. Could anyone speculate as to whether this is a good or bad idea from a SERP point of view?
The image itself should not affect your SERPs at all. Including a link to their site would probably be a bad thing for your site.
Just post the image with no link back and why would you link to them in the first place (site wide), did you get a free link from them? If not, don't bother.
Avoid linking back to them. You are paying them for a listing, so why give them a listing on your site for free?
Since when does linking to a reputable site such as BOTW or any other site have a bad effect for google SERPs. Care to explain how it will hurt the site? For the OP - add the link if you think it will be useful to your site's visitor. If not, don't do it.
Care to explain why the link is negative? How would such an outgoing link be negative? Should no site ever link out? Are all outgoing links negative?
We can never tell if linking back to BOTW will have a negative effect or not, but based on Google’s policy on link exchange better to avoid it, put the image but don’t place the link. SEs, crawlers, robots, or spiders cannot reason, if they judge you are exchanging link that pass PR or rank then more likely you will be penalized. Although Matt tells that exchanging link naturally (without consent or agreement) is "ok" but we really can't be sure. So prevention is better than cure. Finally, regarding your question, if you place the image with or without the link, it won’t help anything in your position in SERP.
Ummm .... link exchange? Isn't better a one way link better then a link exchange scheme? Anyway, regardless to seo aspect, many other members said something that makes sense "you pay to get listed in their directory" so whats the point of linking back to them, unless you have affiliate account with botw too? It's a sweet thing, Pay me $XX to get you listed in my site, and please you list my site on yours for free...
It's not a link exchange by very definition. BOTW has listed their website with no requirement (as far as we've been told) that OP links back. I'm with Agent000 on this one - only link to it if it's going to be useful for your visitors, otherwise don't bother. Natural link building is the best thing you can do for your website, whether inbound or outbound, and your visitors will be the ones who benefit.