Who still believes in reciprical linking for Google purposes?

I have read things stating that only relevant lins are worth anything and that reciprocal links are bad.

All I know is that some unrelated recip links show up on my google list, and that some of the ones at the top trade links with everyone.

Google is pretty frustrating, but they don't seem to penalize for recip links. But who knows?

 

Hm... I remember some people were crying that Jagger killed all reciprocal links' value, but I haven't yet seen a person who could tell that their sites went down exactly because of reciprocal links. Well, ther were many people saying that "this site had only reciprocal links so it is down now", but they were not sure that this happened due to recips only (as a rule thay had poor content, hidden text, etc), but I've also seen hundreds of people with sites having only reciprocal links, but thier SERPs improved after the Jagger update.

So, I believe that if one exchanges links with relevant quality sites, he/she may be sure that it works well for all SEs (incliding Google).

It's hard to do so Some simple measurements are:
- Google PageRank
- link popularity
- page title
- number of incoming/outbound links
- relative content

You might have seen all these words hundreds times, but you can only say you know what "quality" means for Google if, e.g. you know how Google defines the "related:" websites (but I don't say that "related:" sites are the best site to link to

 

I've never really ranked all that well in Google...

...get a bit of traffic, but nothing to get excited about. Most of my traffic comes through MSN, and all I've done most of the time is gone for reciprical links...so far MSN still likes me.

I don't think that Google is into penalizing sites with reciprical links....but you may need a thousand of them to equal 5 decent natural links.

For me I definitely think I need to get going on building some true "natural" backlinks...don't really like the term "natural" cause lets face it, whether I send out a press release or articles, I'm doing it with one of my main purposes being I want some links....that isn't exactly natural.

 

there are still some solutions like x-href.com, but I still exchanhe links on some of my sites. anyway last two updates shows that it gives almost no result

that seems to be the only right way

 

just out of curosity you guys with your relevant "quality" links, have you sites rankings increased a lot in google by taking that approach?

 

Is it ok to post a search term and a site name to use as an example of a site that has rankings with recips only? Don't want to get in trouble .

 

yes, they did

 

If you don't want to exchange links, then buy them.

 

Yes, I do link exchanges and they work extremely well. My page rank has jumped tremendously be getting good link exchanges.

 

Thats funny only one person said that trading relevant links helped their rankings, and they sell link management software

 

Ferret - I just want to clarify your question - you are asking whether anybody has seen a noted change in SERPs by emphasizing relevancy in their link exchanges, correct (in other words, "quality" = "relevancy")?

 

Remember, link building, no matter how you do it, is only part of the equation:

PageRank Information

Google Inc. Technology Overview

 

I was just asking if anyone switched from non-themed recip links, to themed and saw any difference at all?

For years people have been saying you need "themed" , "relevant", "Quality" links, but for years it was BS. Your links could come from anywhere it didn't seem to matter.

Maybe now it does, but if you havn't done it both ways then you really don't have much credibility on the subject right? If you havn't tried it both ways how do you know there is a difference?

 

My advice would be to have a variety of links from mostly themed, but some unthemed as well if the sites are liked by Google (check their own rankings for their keyterms to see if they're anywhere).

 

You used this same argument elsewhere, ferret, and it made no sense then either.

I haven't tried heroin or coke addiction, either, but that doesn't mean that my conclusion that it's a bad idea is unfounded or carries no weight. One of the things that distinguishes many animals including humans is observational learning: the ability to learn from the actions and consequences of others.

 

Actually I think it would be more like comparing China White Heroin to Tar heroin, in terms of enjoyability.

The SEO world is chock full of liars (or marketers) and people who twist info to suit some other agenda, they have. For the most part if you don't test it your self, or study and anlayze an existing site, then you cannot really trust your knowledge. Basically any knowledge taken from someone else's words is suspect, in my opinion.

 

I will agree that no one should believe anything merely because they saw it posted on a forum somewhere. That doesn't mean that there aren't credible sources or that you can't look at convergence of concepts and evidence from other sources to draw valid conclusions.

On the other hand, if you feel you need to "test" it, go ahead.

 

So while you guys are bantering about heroin,

what G says is hardly black and white. there are successful webmasters that say every link is good and others that say google penalizes irrelevant content.

What I see is that my competitors have links showing up on google from all types of sources and some are ranked at the top without any keyword relevancy in title or page and low PR.

Search term ranking must have to do with links. Some are better than others but all are good.

 

I agree. People try to simplify the issue.

 

Here's my methodology for finding linking opportunities:
- choose the phrases I want good SERPs for, plus some locale specific business directory phrases
- contact or submit my site to any sites ranked in the top 35 for those phrases (if they offer outgoing links)

I'm sure there are more effective ways, but this has worked consistently for me.

I guess that means that I _only_ go after themed linking opportunities.