hen the Internet was on Adsense, Google’s contextual
young, ten years ago, one advertising system. Many sites
of my most pleasurable have been constructed whose sole
online activities was to go to a purpose is to get people to click
site’s link page and follow the on ads. The owners of these
links to some cool sites. Equally sites, in a concerted effort to
fascinating was the prospect of get high rankings, have built
having my site listed on some of complex link directories on their
those links pages, which prompted sites and are soliciting link
me to get into the activity now exchanges.
known as reciprocal linking, or
trading links with other sites. The net result of these
developments is that most
My, how times have changed! Now requests that one receives these
whenever a reciprocal link days are automated and will
request lands in my “in box” I provide you with links on
delete it immediately just like directory pages that have no
other pieces of obvious spam. How PageRank and will hardly ever be
did this come to pass? As soon as seen by any human visitor.
it became known that Google’s Another consequence is that when
PageRank system rewarded sites you, in good faith, send an email
for incoming links, the trading to someone requesting a
of links, and even the buying and legitimate exchange of links you
selling of links, heated up and may never get a reply because
most webmasters got into the act. your email will be deleted by a
webmaster, sick and tired of all
To make matters even worse the the requests.
flood of reciprocal requests
became a tidal wave in the past So is reciprocal linking a dead
year as people sought to cash in duck? The answer is a qualified
“yes.” It takes a long time to following query:
conduct a link campaign these link:http://www.yourcompetitor.co
days, and it is harder to get m
links on sites with link pages
that will generate traffic or Look at the sites that are
help you with your search engine linking to your competitor and
ranking. see if you can find link pages
that have a good PageRank (3 or
So, don’t have big expectations more) and are situated so that
from reciprocal linking. If you they could send you traffic.
do want to build up your incoming These are the “plums” and you
links with this method you should should try to pick them, by
do it in a highly targeted soliciting a link exchange with
manner. Concentrate on trading those sites.
links with sites that are closely
related to yours. If you sell Also, scrutinize the pages where
lawn mowers, then trade links your link might be placed. If it
with someone who is selling grass is buried deep in a directory or
seed. not within two clicks of the main
part of the website then you can
If you are not sure who might be forget about exchanging links
a good link partner then visit with that site. If the link pages
the site of one of your have more than 50 links sloppily
competitors. If you have a Google arranged, then you will also get
tool bar installed do a “backward little benefit from such an
links” check which will produce a exchange.
list of sites that link to your
competitor. If you don’t have the This is a time consuming
toolbar installed just go to practice, and the results are
Google’s search page and make the diminishing. Along with
reciprocal linking you should then you have hit the jackpot.
also try other ways of getting Similarly if you find a directory
incoming links: distributing that is important for your
articles and press releases industry, a listing there may be
online with a link back to your well worth it even if you have to
site and buying or getting free pay for it.
placement in online directories.
The reciprocal linking landscape
In the cases of article has changed a lot in the past ten
distribution and also directory years, and even in the past one
placement, the biggest results year. Reciprocal linking can be
will come when your article or used judiciously but it is no
directory listing is highly longer the powerful traffic
targeted. If you can get an generating method that it once
article placed in a high volume was.
newsletter or an oft-visited blog
About the Author:
Donald Nelson is a search engine optmization specialist and his firm A1-Optimization offers affordable search engine optimization, website copywriting and article writing services. He is also the editor of the A1-Article Directory
Read more articles by:
Donald Nelson
Article Source: www.iSnare.com 
