martinibuster - 11:55 pm on Dec 16, 2006 (gmt 0)

This is the most upfront statement from Google about their efforts to counter reciprocal link exchanges. The importance of this blog post to those who consider reciprocal linking as a viable strategy cannot be understated.

It's been a matter of debate whether or not Google discounted reciprocal links. Today it is safe to say that Google is not fond of reciprocal link exchange schemes. It doesn't get more explicit than this.

Within a recent Google Blog post [googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com] about bad linking practices, the author lumps reciprocal link exchange tactics alongside paid links. The author does not qualify the statement against recips by singling out non-relevant or aggressive exchanges. Neither does it make a distinction between relevant link exchange or free for all link exchange. The blog simply references the exchange of links.

To sum up, even though improved algorithms have promoted a transition away from paid or exchanged links towards earned organic links, there still seems to be some confusion within the market about what the most effective link strategy is.

It's fairly clear that Google's algorithms are targeting reciprocal link exchanges.

Has the day finally arrived when we can toss off Reciprocal Link Exchange tactics the way we ditched Netscape 4.7 and the "Web Safe" color palette?