I agree that link exchanges need to be with relevant sites, however, even if it were a relevant site I wouldn't advise participating in a link exchange with a site that has a lower PR than one's own. With that said, I don't promote my sites through link exchanges.
KLB, I agree with your first viewpoint. Nobody truly knows the effect of "PageRank". I think it's bullock, and is simply there as a measurement tool that can be faked. If I asked someone to find me a top 5 ranking website for a competitive term, you'll see that a lot of no PR.
I don't think I said no one knows the effect of PageRank. What I have said is PageRank is the resulting calculation of factors that also affect SERPs. You are confusing cause with result. It can't be faked as easily as other factors (e.g. Alexa) and its relevance can be validated by looking for the source of backlinks and using other factors. It is a heck of a lot better to use PageRank than to just rely on stats and claims produced by a website's owner. Yes one could try to inflate their PR but it isn't the easiest thing in the world to do unless one is a serious link spammer. Sure one could try one of those tricks that "steal" PR with goofy redirect tricks, but the effects of such tricks are very short lived and really screwup the indexing of the page that the trick was used for. I'd wager that 99.9%+ of webpages on the Internet are displaying their "real" PR. Again a low PR especially on an old site raises concern about the value of advertising on a site. Sure people might try to fake high PR, but a low PR says a lot about a site. http://www.google.com/search?q=periodic+table+of+elements (37,500,000 results). This is a good example of a "normal" search that doesn't attract MFA sites, every site in the top ten has at least a PR6. While it doesn't attract spammer, it is an extremely competitive search phrase as there are countless periodic tables on the Internet as every Tom, Dick, Harry and university chemistry department has their own version of the same thing. The fact is that some people are so focused on their own little world of search terms that are full of spam that they fail to realize that vast sections of the SERPs do not attract MFA sites, affiliate spammers and sub-domain spammers because they just don't have super high key word CPC value. --Edit-- One additional thought, when looking at the PR of webpages it should be put into context of other similar sites. A PR4 in an obscure niche might be a really good PR where as a PR5 in niche like PHP programing or SEO might be totally lame.
If you have a great PR you can make link exchange with powerful sites and improve your traffic & also sell links to your site
I don't know that it would have a negative impact, I just it would be an uneven trade. Still I advice people against doing link exchanges at all. I've been developing websites for going on 11 years now, and I just don't see the value in link exchanges. I'm of the belief that reciprocal links are detected by search engines and that the benefit is canceled out. In regards to my environmental chemistry site, I don't give out links without an ulterior motive. I get requests for link exchanges all the time for that site and I'm of the belief that if someone wants a link from that site and have access to my users of that site they need to pay me. To me link exchanges just look unprofessional. Paid links say that someone finds advertising value in the site. No if another well established and authoritative website that was relevant to my site wanted to start a partnership, I would listen.
I don't do many link trades either, but then many people do as they don't have the budgets to buy links or develop good link bait. I also believe that non-related exchanges are worthless, if not (as I said earlier) a ticket to a penalty. I also don't look at things as a case of an even trade. By doing an on topic link exchange you benefit simply from the increase you'll get in the SERPS, without the exchange at all then you'll get no benefit at all so it seems like a bit of a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Looking at things purely from a PR perspective severely limits your opportunities and ability to rank well in the SERPS.
i think pageranks are important to people who buy sites , also people still look for certain Page rank's to add their site to so it must be important. Sites such as directories, and in the link sales/exchange section on this forum.
The thing is once a site gets a certain number of back links extra back links help very little. As things stand now, my basic positions in the SERPs have changed little in many years. I dominate many of the keywords my various pages are relevant to in both Google and MSN. In order for things to change for me, I'd have to have a massive influx of high quality links from really popular sites to do me any good. Sure I take every volunteer link I can get, but doing a link exchange with some PR2 site would look really desperate and be of no value to my site. It wouldn't help me in the SERPs and it wouldn't bring me any direct traffic. Since ranking well isn't a problem, my concern is trying to attract non-search engine traffic. I'd really like to be able to generate substantial amounts of traffic beyond the search engines. Although admittedly I wish Yahoo would show me a little more respect.
Okay, that may be true of you, but it doesn't apply to 99% of other webmasters. With a site ranked where your is though I'd completely idnore PR and just look for links that will maximise traffic as even a high PR link won't have any affect on a #1 ranking.
I think this is true for many sites that have high PRs like I do. EXACTLY! I'm not interested in link exchanges, I'm interested in strategic partnerships with top notch sites where the cross site promotion to readers helps generate quality direct traffic.
No, a site that has high PR won't always have good SERPS, they'll still need on-topic link exchanges, high PR or not.
Like I said, "many sites". I never said all sites, there will always be exceptions to the rule, but many high PR sites do just fine in the SERPs assuming they also did the other basic SEO things they needed to do. I think where this rule falls down is when the site focuses so hard on getting PR that they forget everything else. At that point in time having a high PR probably won't be enough to get good SERP placement.
When I look at my daily log and see all the visitors I am getting from my link exchanges, I am convinced that they are a good thing. Whether these exchanges help with search engine rankings is up to debate, whether these exchanges bring me targeted traffic, the answer is yes. I also see on my site stats, search terms visitors use to get to my site. Many of these search terms include wording only found on my resources page in the description of my link partners sites. And since I only exchange links with relevant sites, these are targeted visitors as well. I have also acquired some nice partnerships with other sites that originated from a simple link request. In my opinion, people are too one minded when it comes to exchanges and think only of their effect in terms of how search engines view them and not of the potential traffic and other benefits they can bring. This of course will provide better results if you are selective with your exchanges and exchange links with relevant sites where your link will have some visibility not buried in a huge directory or something. p.s. by the way, I also believe relevant exchanges do help with your rankings and will continue to believe that until someone shows me concrete evidence that proves otherwise.
if your site, regardless if it has a semantically-related keyword structure the particular keyword of your choice, still has this relevancy in terms of driving more traffic. take google for example. google is basically does not link on a particular one-sided keyword or subject, but in spite that they own PR, they sill have PR 10 since a factor may be because they drive huge traffic...so, the PR tool may deem that site as "relevant." that's just a mere hunch after all.
PR... It is used to detirmine the relative 'weight' of a link.. SITES A, B and C Site A is a reference site that hates Coca-Cola Google Search Site B is an anti CocaCola site. It links to Site A. Site C is also anti-coke, and links to Site A. What we have here is a group of people of a like mind. A community if you will. Google likes communities. Site B has a natural PR of 3. Site C is a very well respected blogger who has a PR of 6. Site A now inherits a proportion of the PR of both linking sites and also gains more respect due to its status. In order to protect this elevation to 'reference site' or 'community leader' it ought to not link to many other sites (but ought to link to other 'good' community sites) Thats my understanding anyway...
I've never been overly interested in PR. I checked mine last week, just out of curiosity, but it's not something I obsess over. In all honesty, I just work hard on my site & don't worry too much. Having said that, G seems to like me (and will continue to do so...touch wood), I wrote an article on Thursday & Googled the topic (for another reason) 2-3 days later & my article was about 4th on the 1st page of G. I add free listings for breeders, and in return insist they add a link to my site on theirs. Other than that, I don't ask for links. I've found since my site has become larger & obviously better known, I receive several e-mails a week asking me to link to somebody's site. Which I will only do if I feel it will benefit my visitors. I don't do link exchanges per se. Can't be faffed.