Do you engage in link exchanges for your sites?

[MichaelCorfman]

Inbound links to a website are an important factor used by search engines to determine how high the page and the site being linked to should appear in search results. Almost all webmasters exchange links with other webmasters as part of a strategy to increase the number of inbound links to their sites because of that fact.

What about you? Do you currently participate in link exhanges with other webmasters to increase the number of links to your sites? If you have exchanged links, how many current links do you have on that basis?

A year ago I asked a similar question about paid links. You can see that poll here: Do you purchase paid links to your site?

Be sure to post in this thread more details about your experience. How much trouble is it to arrange fair link exchanges? Do you have evidence how much they have helped you? Or have they hurt you because you were penalized for poor quality inbound links you acquired?

Michael

[Nandakishore]

I have around 240 backlinks from different portals, but only about 25 from sites with PR 4, 5 and 6. I have not done much for link exchange lately which I will change now getting rid of some the existing links and trying to get some good ones.

[arkyt]

At one time I used to do a lot of link exchanging like 5-6+ years ago. I would say around 2005 I stopped doing exchanges all together; mostly because they were just too much hastle. I would get a dozen or more request a day to exchange links and 99% of those request were in my opinion worthless.

Late 2009 to early this year I decided that I would reinvestigate the idea of link exchanges and decided to start offering and/or proposing exchanges again. Thus far I have't added many - I think since I converted most of my HTML sites to PHP and the PR didn't transfer over that many probably see a low PR site and just trash the proposals.

In addition it seems that the abundance of request that I receive are for 3 way exchanges. These affiliates request that I link to their quality site in return they offer to place my link on a site containing what appears to be nothing but spun content - what a joke of a deal that is.

Maybe I'm 5+ years behind the game and thats the way things are being done, but I would prefer a good old reciprocol link ... refer my guest to your resources and in return you refer your guest to mine.

With that said if anyone wants to do some exchanges let me know.

[universal4]

I exchange links frequently.

I can say that link exchanges have helped me and I can also say that link exchanges have hurt.

Links can hurt if you have a number of outgoing links that point to 404's and this happens when you have link partners that take down their sites, remove pages that you were linking to etc...

Because of that it is necessary to go through your links occassionally looking to see if the pages you are linking to still exist.....or are changed to a seach site because the domain expired etc....

I have always felt that outgoing links themselves do not hurt providing you are linking to content that matches the anchor text being used as well as the theme of the page the link iis on as well as the therme of the page the link points to.

It is quite disappointing to see the number of links I have had to take down on occassion, in addition to the amount of time it takes, but in reality it's just something that has to be done once in a while.

Based upon the above reasons I prefer to arrange links with members of the various forums such as the GIA, GPWA, AGD and GAP but I will also respond to the link emails I get occassionally as well.

I do know that some GPWA members will ONLY exchange links with other forum members but I have had to take down my fair share of exchanges that I have arranged here.

I also know that some people will only exchange based upon toolbar pr, but I think that basing the linking decision on pr is shortsighted, and I have often comepletly overlooked exchanges when they have a pr requirement.

I am interested to see some of the feedback this thread will draw and am hoping we get quite a bit from some of the old timers and not just those who have joined the forum solely to generate links....

Rick
Universal4

[TheGooner]

+1 with Arkyt


Used to do quality exchanges - they've dried to a trickle.
Now get inundated with requests from SEO professionals spinning 3rd-party links to waste of bandwidth sites.

Perhaps I'm just getting old and grumpy - but much of the email / activity / websites in this space are clearly worthless.

[universal4]

Here is a perfect example of how much of a pain-in-a** it is to do exchanges.

Shortly after I posted the above I decided to do a few exchanges on my Playtech site.

I used a search engine and found some possible sites and started looking through them.

I found one to exchange with, they had a page up with their instructions and I followed them.

I placed their link first, using their criteria, and then wrote an email asking for the return link.

All should be good to go, but before I left the site I decided to take a closer look (I know I should have done the next step before creating the exchange)

This person was VERY clear thet the page where I placed the link to them to be indexed by the engines (it is I assure you) but then I looked close at their link pages and realized that the link pages they have are NOT indexed by the engines.

So, I wrote anoth eamil that I would be immediately taking their link down....

What bugs me is this very same individual has a number of sites coming up fairly high in a number of engines under a number of search strings...they are now easy for me to spot based upon their linking criteria as well as at least one link page they have up contains a number of the exact same link parners...and they all follow the same design and naming type convention....

This kind of thing is VERY annoying but if I let it affect me I will not be able to get any links done today and I am determined to do a few....

Agrh......

Rick
Universal4

[arkyt]

I placed their link first, using their criteria, and then wrote an email asking for the return link.

Thats another thing that makes doing link exchanges too much of a hastle - putting up the other sites link(s) first. Thats how I used to do it as well, but these days it seems that a very low percentage of those request emails that I send ever get answered and many that do come back saying their interested in a 3 way exchange - BAH - that means you have to go back in and remove the link.

[Dominique]

I have only a small handful of exchanges - and these are to sites I think will actually be helpful to players and compliment my content by offering something I don't.

I have added a link maybe once every other year. Since I only link to top quality informational sites, I don't have any issues with bad neighborhoods etc.

I do link freely from my blogs - to content that supplements my blog entries only. No exchange there.

[matted]

5-6 years ago I learned about exchanging links - and immediately saw results. That wained over the year and I'm contemplating how to go back into it.

Proper link trading takes a lot of time... you need the right links on the right pages which looks natural... and offer the same in return. And once you get beyond your circle of friends, you need to continue to monitor the links to make sure they are still honest.

I still get emails every day looking for link trades - I trash all of those as (in the past) I had very little long term success.

if I can say one positive - people are less PR driven than a few years ago.

[universal4]

I am half afraid to post in this thread since I posted twice earlier today and kept crashing the board....

Yea guys I guess that was my fault earlier today.....LOL

Rick
Universal4

[universal4]

I totally agree Matt....and I think carefully crafted exchanges still work....

I don't mean carefully crafting the xchanges so that you do a ring around the rosie and they gotta be 3-way and 4-way exchanges so you attempt to hide from google what you are doing,....

I mean crafting the exchanges so that they make sense to the visitor....linking from a blackjack page to a blackjack page using a blackjack anchor....sports for sports and football for football.....

And like Dom mentioned earlier, put links up that you wouldn't feel bad about showing your visitor....

Rick
Universal4