The main reason to having many inbound links is to increase your rankings on various SEs. And we all know that mulitple link exchanges help increase multiple outlets to let SEs like Google to index and rank us accordingly. Now with respect to Blogs, many of us know that they can help us with our SE rankings. And let's say that your website has a blog component to it. And if you blog often and blog relevant content that is filled with rich keywords , then this can help you boost your search rankings. Do you think a case can be made that by blogging often, you can help reduce the amount of inbound links that you need to remain competitive with your SERPS. Let's say that a website with no blog and stays rather static with it's content needs about 50 inbound links to remain on the first page of Google. But what if you have a blog installed onto the website and because you blog often, you probably don't need as many inbound or reciprocal links. Perhaps now, you only need 25 reciprocal links to remain on the first page of Google. Because everytime you blog, you ping the blog search engines and let them know that new relevant content is added to your site. And by blogging often and blogging relevant content, you don't need to pay another SEO company to keep doing link exchange work for you every month as well. What are your thoughts about how blogging effectively can help play a part in search algorithms and it's ability to nullify or reduce the need to keep engaging in link exchanges? In many respects, by having a blog, you reduce the burden of link exchange work. Because in effect, a blog with consistent fresh content IS another way of creating an outlet like Google to index and rank your site accordingly.
What you're saying is accurate, but unfortunately undermines the 'effort' principle. Take for example a blog. You ping the relevant sites, and suddenly a link to your feed (rss or otherwise) appears on a number of sites. Nice, but don't forget it quickly dissappears too. So, to make use of blogging as a strategy, you need to regularly update your blog or amalgamate cross feeds, and ping etc. On the other hand, you can acquire static inbound links. Once they're in place, little effort is required to retain them. The upside to pinging.. it's quick. If ever you wanted a site found, it's a great way to kick off the discovery process. In fact, starting a blog exclusively for this purpose is not unheard of. Your links will appear in several great locations and will be immediately hoovered by bots. Static IBLs on the other hand enjoy longevity. I'd go both ways myself, and remember, as long as you can generate a feed, you can ping.. so your site doesn't necessarily have to be a blog either. Cheers, JL