martinibuster - 5:12 pm on Aug 25, 2006 (gmt 0)

Linking should only be conducted as a branding function. Never as an SEO function.

And Playboy Magazine should only be purchased for the articles, hehe :).

Seriously, though, cnvi has a good point about cultivating non-search traffic. There are many other reasons to cultivate non-search traffic through linking, such as branding and traffic itself. I own an expired domain that G turned a blind eye to after I purchased it. No matter, it had so many backlinks I received enough traffic for it to start converting.

However, I think it's fair to say that the majority of people doing reciprocal links are doing it to rank better. It's like Zig-Zag rolling papers. You can take pains to distance yourself from the fact people are using it to roll joints or rank better on Google, but the fact is, most people are not buying Zig-Zags for rolling tobacco, and most people aren't doing reciprocal linking for the traffic or branding.

If you don't care about ranking and are only out to develop branding and cultivate traffic from other sites, go ahead and do your link campaign. If it results in search traffic, it's cream, right? If it doesn't and your rankings still stink, then no big deal as ranking was not your objective.

As far as developing awareness of your site, I try to mix in website banner advertising plus low CPC campaigns on AdWords, YSM, and MS AdCenter. Even if nobody clicks on your ads, it's still shown and there's your brand impression.