Link Exchange

It should be noted that recent ( 2006) have made the standard link exchange obsolete. So don't go wasting your time collecting links from any site. You need to focus more on relevant and related sites.

Some would argue that reciprocal links don't count and propose triangular links or other such schemes to try and trick the search engines. Again avoid that. My recommended approach is to find sites that you think will benefit your visitors, link to them and ask them to link to you.

Link Exchange Process

 The first step is to find Websites to Exchange links with. There are two ways of doing this the manual method or by using software tools that will search out related websites for you.

I use both the manual method and the software method (see value exchange below). 

Manual Link Exchange Method

In order to find websites that are willing to exchange links I do a search on my keywords and then take a look at my competitors websites resource/links page. This page contains links to other websites from my competitors site .

 Usually you will find that over 90 percent of these links are reciprocal links. I then visit each of those websites and look first and foremost if I would like to link to that site, and then I look for a link exchange page. If I find a link Exchange page I fill out the form, if not I email the webmaster and request a reciprocal link.

Requesting a Link Exchange

When you have found a suitable link exchange partner a simple email to the webmaster is sufficient.

Generally 90 percent of the webmasters respond and almost all that respond respond positively.

Link Format and Varying the Link

Google and other search engines evaluate links back to your website using the link description (anchor text) and so it is important that the link description matches your site. Therefore before requesting a link exchange create the description that you want to have for your link and request that the Webmaster use it for the link. Here is what I use for my site.

It is also good practice to vary the link text so as to make the link look more natural . Therefore you should ask some sites to link using the description Making a website and others using make a website. How  many variations you have really depends on then number of exchanges but 2 should be enough.

Link Cheating

Page rank which was used by Google for measuring site quality was very highly valued. Although the exact details of page rank can get quite complex the essence was that the more links linking to your website the higher the page rank.

 Now if you have a high page rank when you link to another site some of that page rank will be passed on to that site.

Now in order to keep all the page rank to themselves some webmasters request a link exchange but place you link on a page that the search engines never see and so the link from them to you has no real value to you but your link has value to them.

There are various techniques that they use to accomplish this and some are very difficult to spot without detailed research. Therefore I use page rank as a quick guide.

Basically if the page that contains the link to your site has a page rank then Google has indexed it and the link is ok. If the page has no PR then it could be because the page is new and not yet indexed or they are cheating.

 As a quick test here I go to a few other of the link pages on that site and if they have a PR then the site is probably OK if none do except the main links page then they are almost definitely cheating and so I steer clear.

Because of exchange programs page rank has been devalued, and it should no longer be given too much attention.

To view the page rank of a web page you need to have installed the Google toolbar or use one of the many online tools like:

•  http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
• http://www.top25web.com/pagerank.php

How Many Links ?

Some Websites have thousands of links others only a few. Try to exchange links with a few good quality sites and not with thousands of poor quality sites. A useful measure of a good quality site for a link exchange viewpoint is the Site Page Rank (PR) this you can view using the Google Toolbar (if installed).

Sites with PR greater than 4 are good link site partners. However do remember that new sites will have a low PR this doesn't make them bad partners; if the site looks good and matches your theme, then consider it even though it has a low PR.

 I would aim to get around 10 good links relatively early from directories and themed hubs and then build links gradually as needed or as and when you find a good site to link with. Don't spend all your time trying to build links after the initial links have been established the extra links have less of an impact (for rankings in Google).

Viewing Back links

To find out how may links a search engine thinks you have pointing to your site go to the search engine and do the following query substituting your own domain name.:

link:http://www.sitename.com

The search engine should show you he back links it know about. Don't worry if not all are listed as it may be that the Engine hasn't had chance to update its index yet or as in the case of Google it only shows a selection anyway. There are tools that will automate this process and also websites that also offer online link popularity checkers.

Don't Exchange Links Exchange Value

It's very easy to exchange links with the sole target being to have as many as possible so that you achieve a high PR only to find that it doesn't affect your rankings and it takes a massive amount of time.

The purpose of links is to provide value for you visitor and when a webmaster from another site links to you that link should also provide value to his visitor. So don't look just to exchange links- Look to exchange value.

Register your website for Sitesell value exchange program (it's free) ,you don't need to own SBI, and put your link exchange on automatic value exchange. You can also download a brand new free ebook- Make your links work. Which will show you how to build links for the long term.

 Link Farms - Stay Clear

A link farm is basically a website of links and nothing else. I would be very wary of any promotion or offer that promises to put your link and x thousand websites. Don't exchange links with any site you suspect as being part of a link farm. If in any doubt don't exchange links!

Related Articles and Resources:

• Website Rankings