Link exchange
Link Exchange ("Reciprocal Link Exchange") is a practice of exchanging links with other websites. There are many different ways to arrange a link exchange with webmasters. The simplest way of doing it is to email another website owner and ask to do a link exchange. Also visiting webmaster discussion boards which offer a dedicated link exchange forum where webmasters can request a link exchange be it of a certain category or open to anybody.
Link exchange has been a long time practice by website owners since the beginning of the web. In the last few years (after year 2000), this practice has gained more popularity as search engines such as Google started favoring sites that had more links in the rankings. This system was very accurate at gauging the importance of a website when it first started, leading to the popularity of Google.
However according to some experts [citation needed], search engines no longer place a heavy emphasis on reciprocal links. Instead, the popularity or credibility of a site is now gauged by one way incoming links to that site. In addition, analysis suggests [citation needed], that it is very important both that the theme of an incoming link be relevant to the page being linked to.
Link exchange between non related sites might affect the ranking of websites in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Link Exchange between websites in the same industry can help them and if the website owner does not want to link to direct competitors it is adviseable to exchange links with sites that complement the content of their website.
Many webmasters frequent link exchange directories to try and build up their link popularity by searching for other webmasters that are listed in the directory who are also looking to trade links. Many of these link exchange directories charge a fee for access to their webmaster database or directory but you can find many free ones out there if you search the net. Link exchanges can sometimes be very useful but be very careful with whom you trade links with. As stated before, trading links with the wrong site can have a negative impact on your web site. The best bet is to maintain a 'strict' linking method where you neither accept links from non-related web sites or post links to non-related web sites.[citation needed]
Although it may be more difficult finding sites that closely resemble your site you will find that the end result is much better than simply linking to thousands of sites that are not in your industry or similar to your site in any way. Achieving ten links from sites that are close to yours is much better than getting a hundred from sites that are completely different.[citation needed]
Non Reciprocal Link Method
Incoming links to your website increases the overall ranking you can achieve for a high position within the Search Results for related keywords. When a search robot calculates the link rating for you website, they will compare the final rating to the percentage of reciprocated links. If your site has 80% of links reciprocated and only 20% of external links are one way, it leaves a high chance that your site is simply using a link farm.
The best proven method for maximizing your link strategy is to maintain 90% of your incoming links as a non-reciprocated link. In other words the external site will link to you only without your site linking back. To achieve this there are a number of link exchanges now offering a "Three way Link". Three simply signifes that all websites will maintain the same level of links without creating reciprocated links.
For example Website A links to Website B who links to Website C, and Website C than links back to Website A. When the search robots check each site all links appear as Non-Reciprocated. Another benefit is if a search robot was to try an calculate a three way link exchange the result will always only be a percentage of chance that the link is a deliberate exchange, which provides this method of exchanging links a free breath of life.
When exchanging a Three Way Link however, you still need to ensure that the website linking to you and the website that you link to are of similar category, and maintain a high page rank themselves.
External Links - Three Way and Reciprocal Networks
- iCrawl Link Management : Non-Reciprocal or Reciprocal Link Management.