My thoughts on link-exchange systems that are long dead + first test of a new link-ex

Why the old link-exchange networks didn't make it.

I can't stop thinking why such decent networks like Co-op Advertising Network (dynamoc links) or Link Vault (static links) have vanished. I know personally at least two people who, using those systems, made quite a lot of money via affiliate programs and SEO. Obviously, it was easier in general to reach top positions in Google a few years ago.

But why did the systems disappear? A few factors must have been the reason but I believe they lacked three main components:

1. Websites were not moderated which resulted in lots of crap websites becoming part of the network. many people added low quality content or duplicated sites to make points to exchange for links.
2. Business model that would let the owners maintain standards, hardware, programmers, moderators etc.
3. Proper team that would keep up with the growing demands of programming, logistics etc.

Something fresh ...

Early this year I came across voltrank.com. I bought a domain, produced some content and added the website to voltrank for testing. I added 7 different anchor texts of 15 or more characters each. I set 3 links a day for each anchor which made 3x7=21 links a day for the website. A few hours later, first links appeared in voltrank user panel. Every day new links appeared just as I set them.

A few days later I checked yahoo for backlinks (as it's the best place to check backlinks) and was disappointed to say the least. From 189 links in voltrank panel yahoo.com found only 3!

I was really disappointed and I ditched voltrank and got back to testing other SEO tools

Some 3 months later, I was looking for some keywords that interested me and found my website in top 30 for a few keywords I optimizing  (they are not some easy keywords - about 143.000.000 results in Google) .

Today, 4 months since I added the website to voltrank it shows in top20 for most keywords and voltrank says there are 2520 pages with my links. yahoo.com still shows very few -  only 93! 

And now the question. Does yahoo no longer shows everything and search engines don't show indexed sites that link back to ours ? I certainly think it looks this way.



Getting back to voltrank, I hope they won't repeat the mistakes of the other link-exchange systems because co-op networks have a great potential and I'm sure of it.

pros: it works, websites are moderated (no crap)

cons: it's still quite small (I found out from support there are about 2000 websites)

Now I'm getting back to testing for what is SEO without running tests

 

i still practiced link exchange.. and for me it works and count as backlinks.. it still depends on the quality and relevancy of your link partners.. And what google don't want is excessive link exchange..

 

I'm pretty new in SEO and actually I don't know the history of link-exchange systems, however I gave Voltrank a shot (mainly because it is free and didn't want to spend my budget, which is not big, on unknown thing).
From like 3 months there are some nice growths in positions and traffic.

Unfortunately what I noticed is that there is a difference between links Voltrank shows and results of 'link:' in Google. But I'm getting good results so it's not too bad

intriguing fact: one of my websites has been rejected because of 'duplicated content' and i received an email from Voltrank's staff:

rest of my websites were accepted without any problems. btw, I confess that I build first site on articles found on the internet, so good thing is they are checking it precisely

I'll run some more test and maybe share results.

cheers

 

I dont think its dead i think its useful just watch out what kind of links they are.

 

You are porbably very right. People just added crap sites for the curse of link exchange and they have nothing to do with other people.
I think its site owners's and team duty to maintain the quality

 

I only concentrate on ONE WAY links ...
I don't like LE and is so 2004 as of a strategy to consider ...

 

Exchange with good, RELEVANT sites is nice enough. I was in an exchange program a while back and 99% of the requests were from crap sites, and the good sites the owners had since wandered off and they wouldn't respond.

Might try out voltrank on my quest for PR 5 ... or #1 SERP or whatever is trendy these days.

 

suggestion:
never try to use any type of link exchange schemes. Using such type of sites means you are against webmaster quality guideline.

 

indeed. I was worrying about quality of backlinks I got from this link-exchange system and some of them were crap, when some were really nice (however I believe that backlink is backlink no matter where it is from).

What is most important - positions are going up

I still don't know how much I get from Voltrank but I will be still testing it on some domains. I will see if it is really working!

 

link exchange still works but .... it should come from relevant site.....

 

Link exchange has its own worth also today but have been diverted towards the quality. Everyone was following and still following too the old traditional way of link building. But now it's going to crap, if you are not maintaining the quality and due to this such overstock.com type sties has been penalized by Google for the shady link practices.

And the latest Google Panda updation in the Algos for linking indicating this thing.