I used to think that link swaps had some value, but now I'm lead to believe that a direct link exchange is pointless and doesn't add any PR or SEO benefits. Would that be correct? Would that still be correct in the case of asymmetric PR exchange, eg a PR3 link swaps with a PR of 8 say.
Well it would depend on what kind of site your going to exchange links. Focus to sites in same niche with quality content and high pr.
From my experience I think it does. I've worked on three sites (I'm no professional SEO) and I've gotten them all to rank using link exchanges. Direct link exchanges are just one tool in the SEO belt though. You need to provide a valuable service to your audience, rich content, direct linking, 3 way linking, non-link exchanged back links, pr releases, articles, social networking etc... I will concede that at some point I feel you reach diminishing returns through link exchanges.
That you do was right, but it plus SEO method, on page and off page activity ... On Page optimization : choice , improce and modification keyword in URL, Title, Content, and Keyword Tags .. Off Page Optimization : social bookmarking, social networking, forum submission, article submission, press release submission... Thanks
It's better to go for a three-way link exchange. That way you have one site channeling PR into the other. It's better to have one high PR site than two low ones.
Very well said. Reciprocal link exchanges were devalued years ago, but it's not to suggest they are not beneficial when used as one part of an overall link building strategy.
I think so long the link swap is related subjects, doesn't already have 1000s of links on it, and people would actually click it and find it useful - it's good from your traffic and google pagerank.
I think Google is able to detect link swaps, think about it, two sites linking to each other should be detectable. That said, I would say you concentrate on getting focused links on topic on the same niche through the use of blog posts and guests posts etc. That should help in the long run as replacement for link exchanges.