I recently spoke with a business owner in a unique situation. He didn't renew his hosting account and the site was shut down (Account Suspended displayed when trying to view his site). He had the Website up for nearly four years and was pleased with the results. To my surprise, the person that developed the Website was managing it too. I mean to the extent where He was reselling the hosting and domain name. The Business owner couldn't get a hold of the developer. His phone was disconected and he never gave a new contact number. Okay, so i started helping the distressed business owner. We got the Website back up but had to code from scratch, all the files where removed. He told me his Website had good recognition in SERP's. He told me, after the other guy finished his Website, he promised him first page SE results for three terms on Google. However, he told him, "Never Exchange Links with anyone". He is okay now but I am wondering why the other guy gave such a firm instruction to avoid reciprocal linking. Never with anyone, is a little strict in my opinion. I don't believe it would hurt a Website, especially with similar or alike Websites. I would like to hear other views on Link Exchanges. Do they hurt, not matter, or matter little?
If you exchange links with someone who is exchanging a lot of links with others, you can get penalized by google.
I agree with you. And Mr. Michael! Link exchange is good for SEO but you have to clearly investigate about the party to which you are exchanging your link.
Link exchanging is bread and butter for web masters all over the world. Exchanging links is always a good idea IMO
Link exchange no doubt is a better and efficient methods in SEO, but should be done with optimum care. Anything excess is harmful.
In my opinion reciprocal links have no value at all and will just be discounted by the search engines so they are completely pointless,reciprocal links are exactly the same as one way links and will have the same affect.