Reciprocal linking
Last Updated on Thursday, 2 April 2009 03:57 Written by a2e Thursday, 2 April 2009 03:57
What is a Reciprocal link ? Well for those that don’t really know it’s formed of two web links - Site X links to Site Y while Site Y links to Site X.
In the past this has been the accepted methods for site owners to build traffic, increasing the number of inbound links has always been a popular way to get more traffic and improve page rank in search engines. However site owners need to keep up to date on this idea as it’s changed a great deal over recent years if not months. It’s no longer accepted that a simple reciprocal link exchange will have the desired effect. Far more importance is put on the quality on the links to your site.
Links Have To Fit
If you think about it this is an attempt to get back to proper promotion from one site to another like good old word of mouth practice. And for that reason it’s important for site owners now to think not in terms of numbers but in terms of content.
The very best type of link is a pure unsolicited link from a major player in your category. But the next best could be a link exchange with a similar site with as good or better ranking. Problem with that is of cause is no one really wants to give traffic to competitors do they. It’s hard but you should try and keep to those rules and not give away your links cheaply. If we all do that the Internet will be a far better place to travel around and searches will bear far better fruit then they currently do. This is one on the reason why we only allow links from home pages and those links simple text to make it as easy as possible to search engines to traverse the link. So many people are using linking scripts that makeit pointless to exchange as search engines just don’t traverse them that well. But the are other reason as we hinted;
You need to spend a lot of time if you are going to request reciprocal link exchanges. Even so most requests end in disappointment and this can be hard on new webmaster anxious to increase their link popularity and page rank?
Some of the major reasons for the refusal are set out below:
You send off a reciprocal link request;
1. The first thing most webmaster might do is visit your website. If you site is not relevant to their needs the request will be turned down. Reason - search engines will not give the webmaster any credit for linking to your site and he can’t see the link sending any traffic to his site either.
2. Your content lets you down. Websites with good quality theme related content are seldom rejected. In these cases the webmaster might see him as getting the better end of the deal if your site can send extra traffic to his.
3. Your Google Rank is too low. The is a great deal of rubbish believed about the ranking and sadly in the wrong way by some site owners. It may be true that if a site is ranked lower then another that site might not contribute to the google ranking effect. But the ranking has nothing to do with traffic, a site is perfectly capable of being ranked “0″ and have a very high traffic flow which would be a great deal of benefit to sites they link into to. This you can’t do a lot about but you could include your stats to show the benefit the other site might get value from. Again relevant content will also help.
4. The link must be accessible. It’s a common practice now for novice site owners to try and beat the system by hiding their links on an inaccessible page or in a deep database. This probably because they think they are gaining something – there are not – but it’s still a tactic you need to know about and deal with. Don’t fall into this mess of stupidity,if you look for honest link you should find them and find one good one is better then any number of hidden ones. Your link directory should be easily accessible.
Don’t be tempted to run before you can walk. Make sure your site is finished with good quality content and some traffic before you seek link partners. Choose carefully and make sure they bring something to you although you can’t be too fussy if you have little to offer don’t be tempted to buy links by the bucket load from non-related sites.
