Has anyone been punished by Google for link exchange?

I never heard someone get punished for link exchanges...

 

it is supposedly ok if you are exchanging links with related sites.

 

some people said: don`t. but I am ok with that

 

Google discourages the link exchange very much, websites may be penalized if they know that they are using the link exchange thing!

 

Direct link exchange may give you some troubles but link exchange within a post will add a good value. Thanks

 

People say link exchanges are no good. Link exchanges are used in the masses on a on-going
daily basis - few says they are worthless, others say, they work - it seems like everyone seems
to have their own opinions of it works or not. when I see so many saying ya/na then it tells me
nobody really knows what is going on.

If link exchanges are so worthless, then google should make a statement, and tell
everyone to remove them as they are worthless. Why would people continue
to use them in the masses if they are so worthless? who knows why a certain
site gets knocked by google, maybe they submited 10,000 links, could be for
a lot of reasons google does not like, maybe its not the link exchange, maybe
its how people are going about their spammy ways of getting links to start with...

I am currently building a links directory - I would sure love your ideas
on making a better one - any ideas / suggestions? would love to
hear them so I can make sure google stays off my heals...

 

blah blah blah, so many completely wrong comments.

As long as not all your backlinks are link exchanges it will not affect you in a bad way. Link exchanges with none relevant sites won't harm you either. Get a link exchange page made and keep it under 50-100.

Cannot say how it will affect your ranking, but it surely won't do it in a bad way as long as you have one way links too.

 

They don't exactly punish you, but if you accept link exchanges with sites of low PR it will inevitably affect your PR.