I am just curious about if a required reciprocal link is a good or bad idea in your opinion? If you dont charge for listing in a directory is it unreasonable to require a link back, or is it better to ask for one and leave it up to the submitee? Also how useful are reciprocal links in the serps?
I would say bad and a complete waste, too many scammers out there that will put your link up then take it down or put it on non-indexed pages. Plus recip links are frowned upon big time by some search engines.
Reciprocal Links are not good in google's eyes. Also its useless if the page(where your link is placed) is not indexed & have many obls. Yeah, or you can charge a small amount, but if your directory is new, better offer free listings. For paid reviews you have to advertise, market, promote your directory a lot.
As a regular submitter to directories, here's my personal approach to it: • I submit regularly to free directories without a recip requirement. • I submit occasionally to paid directories that I consider to offer some value. • I never (not one time ever) submit to directories requiring a recip link, for various reasons, including: (1) My link to the directory will almost inevitably be higher PR than their link to me. I would be giving them far more value than they would be giving me. (2) I don't want to be caught linking to bad neighborhoods. I can guarantee the quality of my site, but not of theirs. (3) My website's policy for outgoing links is to link only to those websites in my niche and in whom I have confidence. Usually I have had a historical working relationship with the website owner(s). I have zero confidence in a website whose owner I do not know. He/she may be a fine person (or maybe not ), and next week or month that domain might be sold and turned into a porn site with my website unwittingly linking to it! In sum, my personal policy is to stay away from reciprocal links, other than to websites whose owners I know personally and trust totally.
I'd say bad also. As Jim says I get regularly around 50-100 submissions a day at one of my directories and if I turn that directories reciprocal link on it drops within a day to 0-1 submissions. If your looking to build links I would avoid.
I just removed the reciprocal option from all of my directories within the last week or so, i was going to do it some time ago, it can be more hassle than its worth.
Required reciprocal link is only good for traffic. Not any benefit for SEPS and PR. The reciprocal option has been removed from most of directories .
I think Jim made an excellent summary. To add to what he said, gone are the days when a webmaster will provide you with a genuine backlink. It will come from a link farm or an unindexed page. Not to mention the fact that all the reciprocal links will be from unrelated sites.
Thank you all so much The reciprocal link thing on my submit form is now optional,which makes my dir completely free now. I really am stoked for all the quality feedback and information...Now all I have to do is try and get some submissions! Working hard, but you all are a real big help...Thanx again!
Yes he did Jamie. Link exchanging is done to manipulate google rankings which they obviously don't like.
Reciprocal links would almost never give benefit to a directory with the places they are usually placed. I would say that link exchanging doesn't manipulate google rankings anywhere near as much as other things, for example sponsoring templates. Link exchanges with a relevant site is not wrong, providing a relevant link to your visitors makes sense, a few swapped links is fine, its when you do it on a non relevant or large scale.
I doubt very much that anyone will ever voluntarily give you a reicprocal link - you are better off removing the option entirely from your submit page. If you want just customize your confirmation email to ask them for the recip there. People at google have made comments that lead me to believe they have no idea how that recip feature works and may be mis interpreting it as being required and then punishing the site. I think it is somewhere in the comments of this post if you want to read through all that. Best not to have it there at all. at least imo
Jim said it all! at any given day theres more of a chance of u getting a reci link from a link.php which will have 500 more links, than someone giving u a link from a decent page! M.
I would say bad also and agree totally with comment from Jim4767. This is my unique directory ( http://www.opendirectorio.com/ ), it's like my little girl, it's absolutely free and no reciprocal is required, however I always hope that kind people will place a reciprocal on their site. (unfortunately only 2% of people are kind), but I think it's a good practice. I invite you all to submit your quality websites.
Actually, I have a recip option on a niche directory, and I'm actually getting recips, from about 5-10% of the small number of sites that have submitted. It's free to submit without a recip and a recip is not required. 1/2 or a 1/3 of those are from homepages. It seems that there's a higher percentage of sites that I reject that have included a recip - I think they think that a recip gets them a better chance of getting in the directory. And as far as recips being bad for serps, I challenge that assertion: www.freeindex.co.uk : http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&suggon=0&q=UK+business+directory http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&suggon=0&q=free+UK+business+directory&btnG=Search www.justrealestate.org : http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&suggon=0&q=real+estate+directory Edit: Oh, and www.real-estate-blogs.com : http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&suggon=0&q=real+estate+blogs
Allright i dug through that post and found the comment by Matt Cutts on Dec 3, 2007 10:30 PM Where he posted "And there's the fact that every url submission has that "reciprocal url" field. If you can't see any difference between that and Yahoo, then we'll just have to agree not to see eye to eye." When discussing a directory that was penalized.
Good post swedal, I looked into one of the links which was clear as day to me. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356 Think that sums it up?