Why do people say things like "I need link anywhere in the content area such that my link should not be repeated on every page of the site." when wanting to do a link exchange. Why does it matter? That's a good thing anyway isn't it? Can someone tell me the SEO reason for this?
I suspect they are talking about working the link into the content rather then just throwing them at the bottom. This would appear more organic and therefore be more valuable. As far as not having it sitewide, its again the same idea that when people naturally link to something, they don't put it in the footer of every page (That is usually saved for navigation)
Ok is it a good idea to create a special page for links rather than putting them all at the footer? What about if you have hundreds of reciprocal link exchanges? yoursite.com/related_sites
what he said, when a link is in content it looks more natural rather than in a blogroll or in the footer. When your link is inside content the link tends to pass more value for you.
Hundreds of related content pages although it may be more realistic to group them and maybe have a number worked into each page. I wouldn't have just one page filled with hundreds of outgoing links.