I wanted to share my experience with why three-way link exchanging hurts your SEO efforts and link building. The majority of people have moved over to three-ways. It isn't because its better for SEO either. The main reason its a great way to scam a good link for a junky one. Its real simple. If your looking for links then a person will come up to you with two sites. 1. His main site that he's continuing to update and link build for 2. a Cheap forgotten auto blog that gets no traffic, but still has a good PR because he's/she's put one link to it from his good site. When you go to exchange he/she will give you a link on that junky worthless site and want his good sites link on the site you are looking for links for. Out of over 60 threeway exchanges I've been involved with I have not gotten one that was worth the effort, so I've stopped taken offers for three-ways and when people say there's nothing wrong with threeway I laugh considering the links I get bring traffic and a good PR. in conclusion: There is way too many scammers and tricksters on the internet pretending to be professionals. Your thoughts?
My thought is to ask what you're linking to, and check the stats of that domain/URL you're linking to first. It's really not that hard.
Its not an issue that people don't know they are being ripped off with threeway link exchanges. Its obvious when you see the site they offer. The issue is that EVERYTIME you go to do a threeway, you get dumb junky offers!
If you knew HOW to do the link exchange you wouldn't get junkie offers. That's what he's saying. No form of linking is dead. If directory submissions still work a 3 way link exchange does. Here is a tip... if you're in the market for a 3-way be the site that offers to link from another site and make them link from their main page.
Have you did link exchange, I mean EVER. It has nothing to do with HOW to do link exchanges. When you are looking for exchanging the three-ways are always JUNK, no matter what you say. Go make a topic in the link exchange section and you'll find out yourself. Everyone will be only willing to give you a link on Joe's personal home page or something pointless.
Thanks for sharing your 3 way link experience Laceygirl. From now on I am going to pay a closer looks to prevent Junk sites linking to me in exchange for a good link of mine.
Good plan vahing. It can get a little tiring as you find out how many people are trying to rip you off, but eventually you find some good ones here and there.
I need a good introduction on the best practices for link building and link exchanges. Can someone point to a couple of threads on this site (or elsewhere) so I can get up to speed?
In this sub forum Link Development here on DP you can find lots of tips & tricks. Check it out and try to sort the wheat from the chaff. Remember people here sometimes have different viewpoints, so you best make up your mind considering the pros and cons of all the link building techniques. Also, there is no silver bullet to it. Link building and link exchange means hard work.
I do a 3 way with myself. I have 2 crappy autoblogs and my main homepage links to one and you know the rest.
It's because of exactly what you are saying that i've become extremely strict about my link exchanges and how i word the topics i post in the LE forum. Eventually i'm just going back to searching the net and emailing webmasters again. This is way out of hand. I can say something like "No autoblogs, link farms, more than 25 OBLs. Must have unique content, updated regularly." and i'll still get crappy sites over and over again.