That is hard to believe. Could it have just been coincidence? Related link exchanges has helped my sites rankings and also brings me a nice amount of targetted traffic.
really? are you sure that you link exchange with good quality sites and are related to yours? because it seems impossible for you to lost places in serp in doing link exchanges with good quality sites.
nice tips...everybody should read this. I guess google put light weight of exchange link compared with one-way link?
links from linkfarms = bad links from normal, google indexed google = good, the higher the PR = better. roy77
A two way link means that both sites are in the same 'neighborhood': you endorse their site as interesting and they endorse your site as interesting. One way link only means the 'receiving' site is interesting - so yes, it does count more. Getting one-way links is better. But for starters any link to your site is good, as long as they are not too obviously 'spammy'.
bad neighborhoods are those sites which are spam sites, banned sites, link farm site etc i mean to say sites which are totally scrap to which you hav linked.. So better remove ur links from such sites before google cud remove ur site