A team member considers any SEO concept that uses reciprocal linking is a "Black Hat" tactic. I don't think it is. We get about ~50 new links each month using reciprocal linking alone. Do you think this is to many?
I consider this tactic very gay hence it should be called pinkhat Seriously why should this be considered blackhat? People are exchanging links for years - at the beginning of the internet age it was actually very helpful since people could find related or other interested sites this way easily
I don't consider Reciprocal Linking black hat, but then again usually i only max 2 Reciprocal Link exchanges a month 50 seems pretty extreme
Reciprocal links are a vital part of joint ventures. It is just an efficient way of helping yourself and someone else simultaneously. What is "black hat"? What do these color hats mean?
It's not black hat since it doesn't work anymore...Google WILL penalize recip links sooner or later. Dangerous game to play. The real estate industry got NAILED for heavy use of reciprocal links. 50 would constitute heavy use of recip links. You really need inbound one-way links. For more info, read this: Why Link Exchanges are a Bad Idea
No way it can be called as blackhat But 50 reciprocal links is too much ,just 10 from some Good PR sites will be okay
Then. would be a good recommendation that reciprocal linking should be limited to 10 to 20 links per month?
I'd recommend you not to make any reciprocals - it was years ago when they had some effect. I believe, as said above they could bring you penalties, at least from G.(I hope won't..) but they are still pointless. Try buying some links, or submit articles - articles work excellent for me and not only give me rankings but some(not much, but depending on site niche might be much more) visitors as well. ...I'd call it pointlessHat Cheers
As long as the reciprocal linking you are doing is in the same niche, it is good. However don’t go overboard with that and try to get one way links from sites in your niche.
No, reciprocal linking is not a "Black Hat" tactic. but oneway links are much better then reciprocal links. 50 links per month... if oneway then ok, but not good if reciprocal
Absolute not black hat, even google says so, BUT dont overdue it then its black hat, I max take 20 links per site
It is "Black Hat" for Matt Cutts as you try to manipulate their rankings But, it is legitimate as link buying is.
Any SEO technique designed to manipulate SERPS is black hat seo. A link should be a genuine vote for that site, but obviously if the link is made by someone connected to that website then it cannot be a genuine vote. How search engines can ever get round this is a big headache for them. We will probably end up with big companies making lots of blogs using companies in India and using this cheap labour to make postings. Reciprocal links are manipulating SERPS theres no doubt about that - so TNX, it means by exchanging links you are trying to manipulate search engine results, as those sites linking to you are not giving you a genuine vote - you are just scratching each others backs - but as to calling it a black hat SEO technique then its debatable - but if you are just exchanging links with anybody for the sake of getting a link then it will hurt you in the long run - but exchanging links with sites within your genre could still be beneficial, however this kind of link is no longer given much credibility - it would be much more worth it to have a one way link than 50 reciprocal links - although this depends on the page rank of those pages giving the links. Another thing you have to take into account is that there is a growing number of black hat seo pro's who are cheating their link partners out of a return link to make it look like they have genuine votes for their site, not by using an obvious no follow tag but by much more undetectable methods. So with your 50 new links per month, even at a conservative estimate, I would say at least 3 of them are probably using black hat seo methods to trick you out of your return link, in ways that you cannot even detect - so I would advise anyone exchanging links - if their return link is not showing up by search engine link command after a few months then scrap it. Even if the link is legitimate its worthless anyway. But don't just check it in google, as they show all of them - use yahoo or msn.
No way reciprocal linking can be considered black hat. The whole nineties was based on it. For a historic perspective, read this article about reciprocal linking exchanges. I was there, in the nineties, running a couple of gaming websites There was all sorts of negotiations about "if I put a button my my frontpage to your page, will you link to me" etc. It was all about getting visitors and not about search engines.
Any attempt to manilpulate search engines are black hat, full stop, if you concentrate on ranking rather than content then its black hat seo !
there are websites with great content that still do not rank well in search engines, and this is because others are using blackhat tactics. You have to concentrate on ranking at some point because content without a purpose is nothing... content that is keyword optimized is something. You can have great content and still have it be keyword optimized. I don't consider that blackhat, I consider that smart business.
2 way link exchange is the most powerfull seo technique today. It is not black hat seo, as there is little left of what hat seo - directories are not thematical in most cases, Social bookimarking is no-followed for the most of the part, and gaining a natural "vote for a site" will take years unless you have some rankings.