As well all know, Google has made a lot of changes, and I was wondering if it is still worth it to do link exchanges with sites in your niche. For improving SERP's, would say that link exchange within your niche is: * Extremely important * Very important * Somewhat important * Slightly important * Harmful ???? Thank you.
Google particularly does not like the link exchange especially that is designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, it all also tells you to avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links. More about this at http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356 which will be beneficial to you.
It's still useful if you know how to do it. Most websites who get good rank in competitive niches always perform link exchange (usually three ways). In 2008, I think link exchange will not only about "link exchange" but more to article exchange, etc.
So the three way link exchange is like this: Patriots site links Browns Browns links to Titans Titans links to Patriots ???
I prefer one way links combinet with few linkexchanges but of high quality sites (very related and very strong sites good backlinkpopularity)