Interesting test of the value of reciprocal links

Reciprocal Links Are (Still) Not Dead
By Stoney deGeyter - October 4, 2007

 

Nice article! I find it hard to believe that you can build anything with link exchange...

 

Nice post. Some good points made and no one knows what google does so how can they say they are dead.

 

interesting article....I do recips but not with just anyone, when it has clear value for my visitors

 

As the author hints, there never really was any evidence that Google punished reciprocal linking. For one thing, as I've said before, organic linking often produces reciprocal linking, because good/authority sites on any given topic tend to link to other good/authority sites on that topic and vice versa. I have discovered several reciprocal links to my information sites that were not arranged.

This notion that reciprocal links were bad came from confusion between relevant and non-relevant links and from crackdowns on "link exchange schemes". Certain people concluded erroneously that it was reciprocity that was being punished and, as is often the case with SEO myths, that got stated and restated repeatedly on various webmaster forums until many believed it must have some merit.

 

Good article and the results show a very similar finding to what i produced in my own testing using a similar strategy.

Another test i done was two fresh domains same niche and similar content. One i linked from about 20 of my sites, the other same backlinks but reciprocated.

Both enjoyed comparable rankings. It wasnt a perfect test as the domains had slightly different content. The test was more geared towards seeing how a backlink profile of %100 recips would respond but it did show the recips were passing value compared to one way links.

 

Very nice and result oriented posts !!! I too believe that all reciprocal link doesn't harm, it depends on way its tackled.

Thanks for all clarifications

 

Actually reciprocal linking is not bad... It's just that some of the sites are linking exchange with another too much (in excess) more than making organic quality IBLs...

Who said that links are dead anayway?

 

Great Test ...

 

it's one of the most intresting article that i have read.

thanks for the link

 

Nice Research Dude!

Many of us were wondering how much truth there was to Matt's proclamation about being "excessive."

Although, there are probably changes to the algo down the road which will devalue recip links. So, Im definately focusing more on getting good quality one-ways.

 

Thanks for this, quite interesting. I have always been very selective with recips but this makes me think

 

It's good to see data supporting something many have thought for a long time. I personally believe that as long as a significant portion of your link profile is one-way back links to your site, it is ok to have reciprocals and just about any other type of link, as that type of link profile would reflect a quality citation worthy page. This was a case where SEO's seemed to be over-analyzing and believing something without really questioning the intent and real meaning of the messenger.

 

If you think about it, reciprocal linking is like exchanging your phone number with someone. Kind of natural thing so I doubt it will ever be dead. Spam techniques should and hopefully will die sometime.

 

That is a very interesting read, I have always thought that relevant link exchanges were very useful - especially for getting increased traffic