Does link exchange wasting your time now or it still work?

reciprical linking still works very well, but NOT as the only method used to get links. If all of your outbound links have a return link it looks pre arranged.

I get plenty of pr from reciprocal links, but I also get pr from oneway links, and I link to places that don't link back. there is no set ratio, but you don't want the majority of your links to be reciprical links. An always know who you are linking to and more importaintly who is linking to you. I made a script to help me build reciprocal links, I have it check and display Google page rank, and the url of the links page for that site. It pulls the list of sites out of Google, and I go through it and manually click the post link button for sites, that I believe are worthy. This works for me for a few reasons:

1. If the site wasn't worth linking to it wouldn't show up in search results
2. I can see how much pagerank the link exchange has to offer me
3. I can pick and choose who I will and won't link to
4. I saves me a ton of time because I don't have to hunt for sites to exchange links with

Almost all link building methodes have pitfalls if done incorrectly. Buying links can hurt you if you buy to many at once it will be obvious they aren't natural.

Just my opinion