If you have several site's trading is a good option, so the sites wich you trade links with don't directly link to each other. I would only trade links with sites than are running for awhile and have some pr. But submitting to directories also works great. I would recommend: do a bit of both and get lots of links to your site!
I agree. Both have their advantages and disadvantages so you're best option is to split your alloted time between them
and the benefit of submitting to directories is a lot of them will be 1 way links but also more likely to contain more links on each page where as trading links means you get put or a page with usually about 10 - 20 links
I do both. I am just curious if I should budget my time by doing one over the other. Or, to rephrase the question. Which is better, Link trading or directory submitting? I know BOTH would be good to do... But, this is one of those desert island questions. If you were stranded on a desert island, which would you rather have...?
The links I have received from link trading have often been on very low PR pages shared with 50 other links. Links from directories tend to be on low PR pages shared with 10 other links. That gives an advantage to directories. Link trades also seem to take a bit longer to accomplish than directory submissions. That gives another advantage to directories.
Depends on the budget. My 2c is directories. Free first, then paid, and then if at all, link exchange, 2way or 3way. But that only after you are done with free/paid directories, which are mushrooming at the rate higher then India's population.
Try getting a VARIETY of links to your site. This include: reciprocals, triangulars, directories, submitting articles, buying links. Devote your time to all of these as the links coming will seem more natural to SEs.
Wow... a four year old thread comes back to life! In the intervening years, directories got hammered by Google. Google claims to be able to easily ignore reciprocal links, but my most recent tests show just the opposite.
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Best of the Web seems to be fulfilling the mission that DMOZ originally set out to accomplish. It's not free, but unlike DMOZ is it maintained competently.
It's important your links program is balanced. Link exchanges have incredible value if they're with related niches - human judgement is something search engines look for. If you've got two "experts" in their field linking to each other, then you have two qualified people essentially approving each others work. That means something to Google. Equally, getting the editorial value of a directory helps but it's all too easy to stick to nothing but directories. Diversify!
To answer the question of the OP, I believe submitting to directories is more beneficial. Google does not seem to like reciprocal links.