Recently, I read an article from a famous SEO Expert that google now undervalues or even ignores reciprocal link exchanges compare to one way link exchanges. Will this lead to death of reciprocal link exchanges?
Yes i beleive it will for google however this is not the case for other search engine such as yahoo. Yahoo will still count your reciprical links the more the better.
Findklik would have to be right. However, it would make sense if it didn't weigh as much as a one way link. I mean what's better, the "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" link or the "OMG, this site is that bomb, I'm linking too it!" link? And it's pretty much this mindset which is making Google strive to keep the playing field even by lowering the importance of paid links and how they are encouraging the NOFOLLOW on advertisements. They want viral & word of mouth campaigns to hold the most weight, and do not want money to interfere. If they are successful, then it'll go back to how it should be...links & link trades
i tend to agree with the above poster, i would also like to add , i sometimes think even those urls which are directly typed in rather thank linked from another website would have more weightage.
Keep to related websites and don't build mega links pages. Too often I see newbies with a page of reciprocal links that goes on and on for hundreds of links. Not a good idea.
All directory/links pages are in the supplemental index in Google. I think that a reciprocal link may have still some value from content pages.
I've read nothing about it myself, but generally come to the conclusion that nothing in life makes more sense than common sense. For example, SEOs say "get links from high PR because it helps more" I say, sort of true, but its so obvious that I could benefit from a link from the library of Congress even if I didn't know it was an 8 or a 9. So with other backlinks, its so obvious that it shouldn't really matter how many links are coming in, as from how many with similar content. And I think that would apply even if the other site had but one or two pages with similar content, because some good sites don't fit one niche. So I think that Google will trend to what makes sense.
The truth of the matter is that reciprocal links are devalued, but playing in SERPS is a game of inches so even they help. I would suggest that you take the links you can, the more relevant the better and don't worry about PR.
It might not be dead yet, but it'll be soon. I don't even bother answering those link requests anymore. 99% of them are placed on unrelated, inner, pr0 pages.
Mass recip linking has been dead for years. It doesn't hurt to exchange natural links with a related site, but don't have spammy links pages up on your site. You may want to read this thread on Link Exchanges and Link Building.
Webgeek182, I think you are over generalizing and incorrect in your assumptions ... I would like to see collaborating information from an authorative source, preferably references from Google.
Considering you promote mass reciprocal linking, you can't pretend to say you're not biased. Everything I've said is based on fact, not assumptions, and all this information is very publicly available within the SEO industry. Ok, references: Further reading: SEOBook.com - "Matt Cutts Announces Death of Cheesy Link Exchange Networks" Need I say more?
Can you please provide supporting evidence that I promote mass reciprocal linking? Thank you! You are making generalized assumptions as you have with your previous posts. You provided non verifiable and accurate evidence stating such. You are the typical "know it all" and "wannabe" that floods the net with misinformation. There is no reference to reciprocal linking or reciprocal linking being dead what so ever. Does not reference anything about reciprocal links being dead. References that CRAWL PRIORITIES may be suppressed. Once again, referencing CRAWL PRIORITIES not actual penalties and devaulation of reciprical links. Yet again this addresses CRAWL PRIOROTIES! Quoting from the second paragraph: "Matt then went ahead and posted on his blog that some sites are completely removed from Google's index due to heavy reciprocal linkage." You have yet to say anything! I restate, please provide evidence that reciprocal linking is dead! You insinuate that reciprocal linking is DEAD and I await your evidence that supports your statements. Your statements are general, inconclusive and based on YOUR INTERPRETATION.
i dont agree with that. links from related sites allways will help you to get better results. 2 way or 3 way link exchange
It doesn't take rocket science to see why you're promoting link exchanges so hard...your signature link - "LinkSnitch" - a system for tracking backlinks. (The site says that a "Basic" Account is free, which implies there's a higher-end paid account, which you obviously benefit from.) The only people who track backlinks so hard are those in 2 or 3 way link exchanges. (Quality link brokers already have their own built-in monitoring tools because they want to protect their own reputation.) You have to know if one of your partners stiffs you, so you need a nice system for tracking. Come on! SEO's who do natural link building (aka link development, traffic development, etc.) don't care if a link gets dropped here and there, because they are gaining new links all the time. Also, your other sites have links to completely unrelated sites in the footers. Anyone who's been in SEO for a while can smell it a mile away. Who are you kidding? If hearing it straight from the mouths of SEO industry leaders isn't enough for you, then it's obvious that you're not really concerned with facts. You asked for references from Google, and I provided references from Google. Look, I honestly don't care whether you respect me or not. However, when I get the feeling people have false motives about something and can lead newer SEO's astray with bad info, I'm going to say something. Um..."link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking" is a pretty clear reference to reciprocal link exchanges. Matt Cutts goes on to say "your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links." "Trading a bunch of reciprocal links" - Lower crawl priority is a symptom of your site having less value to the search engine. His whole article is about sites that got dropped from Google for participating in reciprocal link exchanges. Hello! Really? Then what exactly does it mean when it says, "Google is getting very good at identifying reciprocal linking schemes and making sure sites participating in them don't rank well." "Those who are participating in reciprocal link exchanges will be getting crawled less and will most likely see their page counts drop from the index." That's only about crawl priorities. Isn't that what we've been talking about the whole time? You are clueless as to the state of SEO in 2007. None of what I'm saying is interpretation, it's fact. Who cares what I think - ask any SEO industry leader. These things are based on observation of what works and doesn't, and putting it into practice day in and day out. You're not interested in facts though, so there is no use discussing this further.
Once again you have the honor to "open mouth - insert foot" - "Linksnitch" IS NOT my product! I encourage you to check the whois. I like many others here at DP, rent/lease/giveaway links on are signatures, which happens to be the case here with LinkSnitch. You think you would have learned by now. And yes, LinkSnitch works and works very well - it has been developed by a colleague of mine. Yes but SEOs who get involved in paidlink schemes or link exchanges schemes may. Many of todays, top SEOs, whether they will admit it publicly or not, use a combination of link building strategies which include natural, paid, reciprocated, baiting and others. Most SEOs do not care about standard link flux, but they do care if one of their major traffic generating links disappears ie: maybe a nice wikipedia link they have. The site you are referencing is running DP coop and has been like that for several years and this is totally irrelevant to this discussion. Its not a matter of respecting you or not. Its about giving out/ sharing accurate information and not making generalized statements. You keep pulling out snippets of quotes (in an attempt to support your statements) and making your own interpretations around them, but when taken in context of the article (or conversation ) and what is known about SEO, these snippets do not provide any type of support for your hypothesis. I personally don't have time to sit here and discuss the obvious so I'll make this quick and then we can continue on our merry ways. Firstly the SEO industry leaders are NOT saying "that the days of reciprocal linking are dead". If anything, they are advising against getting heavily involved in reciprocating links. Having a moderate number of reciprocal links is very natural in fact and to have no reciprocating links would actually be unnatural and very unusual. They also suggest, that reciprocated links may not be valued as highly as other types of links. I do not see anything wrong in reciprocating links with limited strategic partners or relevant sites. For example, why would "Billy's Luggage Store" not want to get involved with reciprocating links with "The US Luggage Manufacturer's Association" or "The American Luggage Retailers Organization" ? It makes complete sense to do so. However, if you have 500 links to your site and out of the 500 links 350 are reciprocated links, well chances are there may be some flags going off. ciao!