The benefits of massive reciprocal linking?

I decided to examine the web directories which require reciprocal links
to determine how that was working for them.

http://www.2breath.com/ PR5 2,240
http://www.frequentlyasked.info/ PR5 431
http://www.most-relevant-links.com/ PR6 170
http://www.url.biz/ PR8 2,280
http://www.sightquest.com/ PR6 2,890
http://www.watoti.com/ PR4 229
http://www.reciprocallink.com/ PR5 148

The results of this search do not strongly support the theory that a large
number of reciprocal links will build a good Page Rank.

Of the sites tested, only one (url.biz) had a PR of above 6.

Heck, I got a PR6 once from a DMOZ listing. ;-)

 

well, you have to consider that a dmoz listing is, in reality, BUNCHES of links- depending on how deep down, it could be thousands of them.

for recip link directories, you may want to take into account that it's usually not high PR pages that are going to be exchanging links with them..

 

I have PR6 pages with only 8 IBLs. All IBLs are from only two domains(same IP).

 

url.biz does not really use reciprocal linking by definition... last time I checked they used some javascript pop-up so they don't pass pagerank to the listed sites :/

 

Is it just Page Rank or how well they rank for their targeted terms your interested in?

If its the later you may want to consider checking if they always required a reciprocal link for a listing as I've noticed some sites that only have reciprocals (or the vast majority of links in are reciprocal) don't perform well for their targeted terms.

 

Surely its the quality of the sites tha link to them that will give them a high pr, and no quality site is going to link to them!

 

I'm not sure if that disproves the theory. 2,000 links from mostly PR1-3 sites would probably be a PR of 5. 2,000 links from higher PR sites can easily result in the PR 8. Without knowing the PR of all the IBLs, it's hard to say that that data shows anything.

 

I am so jealous!

I have PR5 with 291 IBL's. (Average PR4 on IBL's)

Hmm... thanks for the heads up!

The links on URL.biz seem normal, but... all but the top level of links pages show PR0.

So, if your link is here, it gets to share part of a PR7. If you link is one level lower -- PR0. Probably they are b
locking Googlebot?

A tool to analyze and graph all of the incoming links for a site might produce very interesting results.

Any volunteers?

 

http://www.rustybrick.com/link_analysis.php might help

 

Exactly. PR is important, but traffic and conversions is the holy grail - a point a lot of SEOers forget. Inbound links, don't forget, are also a path the humans may take to your site.

 

I don't get why anyone would waste their time getting listed, let alone link exchanging with a site that does not use ture anchor text for the link out.

 

Mmm... very nice... this will help me considerably with an unrelated project I am working on...

 

Well, I would take a link from a front page story of FoxNews.com, even if it didn't pass PR.

 

Yes that is entirely possible, but Digust's point is that the linking pages must have good PR values in order for that to happen. Eight links from a PR2 or PR3 page would not give you a PR6.

 

If you guys had missed Rustybrick's new tool you may have also missed my article and chart that give relative values to IBLs. Check it out at http://www.compar.com/infopool/articles/PR-calculation.html.

In fact I now have a chart where you can input Rustybrick's results and then do "what ifs" by adding additional links. An example might be that you have a PR5 site and wonder what the addition of one PR7 IBL would do for you. You just plug this into my spreadsheet and it will tell you your new PR ranking.

I'm still polishing the chart, but I'll send anyone who is interested a copy.

 

Hell yes. Polish away, and send it on !

 

<<<<<<
I'm still polishing the chart, but I'll send anyone who is interested a copy.
<<<<<<
I wouldn't say no to that either - please send me a copy!

 

Sorry, I've been busy as hell the last few days. I'll try and get the chart a little more poslished and then send it you.

 

What is IBL?