As the SE's see subdomains as different sites, would there be a benefit in having your links pages (for reciprocals) as a subdomain or would it mke no difference coz it would still be on the same IP? Additionally, would the SE's know any difference between a subdomain and a different domain on the same server in terms of SE results?
but a subdomain address is www.sub.domain.com which is the same as www.domain.com/sub so how is that any different in terms of a link partner not benefitting, than if the subdomain didnt exist?
For a moment just think about site-to-site voting (instead of page to page). You have a bunch of sites voting for your main site. Your main site votes for your subdomain and for all sites listed on the main domain. Basically, your subdomain gets a small part of the voting power of your main domain to share to the link partners. Scenario: your main domain links only to your other sites and your subdomain. Your subdomain gets little voting power and throws bones at the link partners. This way of thinking is based on site-to-site voting algorithms (not page-to-page). With pure page-to-page voting, it won't really matter.
thanks for your reply. Are you saying then that I could do it the way I said but it is kind of unethical towards my link partners coz they are not getting the fulll benefit of being linked to by the main site? Thanks.
I don't think it is unethical. It is clever, as long as your partners agree to exchange a link on the subdomain. I personally stay away of link swaps with subdomains.