Evaluting Link Requests

Does anybody have any advice on how to evaluate a website that wants to exchange links with yours?
I understand that it should be a relevant website with decent, non-spammy content...but what other things should I be concerned about?

Any thoughts?

 

Good content and Relevant.

 

Theme of the site, relevant content, PR, outbound links, what type of links are placed on that page.

 

Since reciprocal links don't have as much value as one-way links, I'd be more interested in the kind of traffic you may get from a link exchange.

 

General things: Real PR, how many links make their current PR, rough alexa rank.

 

good quality content,relevant in subject and not having more than 100 links on the page that will list your URL.

 

Hmm, where to start? Let's see:

• Saad Kamal published an excellent link-building tutorial last week.
• DP-member Michael Vandemar created an excellent free tool to check bad neighbourbood links.
• Loren Baker recently adviced to check a website for links to malware sites before doing any link-exchange.
• Link-building expert Eric Ward gave a link-building masterclass a fortnight ago;
• Gab Goldenberg created a nice and ***free*** link-building report template three weeks ago.

Do not exchange links if...

• ...the link-exchange request is written in poor English;
• ...the link-exchange request mentions high rankings in whatever search-engine they come up with;
• ...the link-exchange request is addressed to "Dear Webmaster" or "Dear Sir/Madam" while you clearly mentioned you name on your website;
• ...no link to your website is already present;
• ...the links is on a dynamic webpage that uses session id’s;
• ...the link to your website is placed inside a frame;
• ...the link to your website is not followed through some method (javascript, robots.txt file, meta robots-tag, nofollow attribute, etc.);
• ...the links page is more than two clicks away from the homepage;
• ...the links page can't be reached at all from the homepage;
• ...the links page contains more than 50 links;
• ...the link or the linking page is cloaked or redirected;
• ...the website contains spammy content;
• ...the linking website participates in automated link-exchange schemes;
• ...the link to your website is placed on another IP;
• ...the link to your website is placed in a link-exchange directory.

Many link-builders even delete requests instantly if they contain the words "links" or "link exchange". Of course, you already know that you should only build links with quality websites that are relevant to your niche.

Here's a nice example of how not to request a link-exchange and another example of an idiotic request from a bot.

 

a real simple one to not forget: check the google cache. You'll be surprised how many offers you get for links on pages with zero page rank and not even cached. Don't bother wasting your time.

Also most of those automated link requests are just garbage and you don't have to feel bad for deleting the email without wasting your time checking it out. Once you've seen a few of these forms they will be easy to recognize and delete.

 

LawnchairLArry - Thanks a lot for all that information...that helps so much.

Interesting...how much more valuable are one-way links?

 

In my opinion, they're worthless. I know others disagree with me, but I devote close to 40 hours a week building links for clients... and I won't waste 2 seconds on reciprocal linking unless I think I will drive some serious traffic (rare) or the site I'm exchanging with has a much, much higher PR than my client does (even more rare.)

I guess to answer your question: I'd take a single one-way link before 500 reciprocal links any day of the week.

 

Thanks for your advice, mauik

 

Here is my criteria in link exchange:

relativeness of links to my website.
location of my links to his website.
PR of a website.

Im also checking if that website use any suspicious blackhat methods. (Its all up to me how i'll judge it)

 

When exchanging links, I do consider the link page where my links will be placed if it's already cached by google. I also check their content if it's relevant and useful, its number and relevancy of outbound links and its PR.

 

I agree with Mauik that one way links are far better than exchanged links. But from where should one procure one way links? if you think Link buiding freelancers and companies who brag to give to one way links, then u need to re-think as no one gives one way links in less price. they either do 3 way linking or multiple way linking. If you really want one way links get ready to pay a good amount.

 

Blog commenting, article writing, "link begging" (as someone called it in a DP thread), free directories... these are all basic things I do for one-way links for free.