DomainDrivers - 8:13 pm on Jan 29, 2007 (gmt 0)

pageoneresults

"But isn't that unnatural and something that is detected in the algo? Wouldn't this have a negative effect?"

Please explain to me what is unnatural about branding your site and taking advantage of linking opportunities with legitimate sites within your own realm of interest? An automotive parts site links to an automotive graphics site, for their mutual benefit, as has been done long before Google even existed.

The only thing that I see as unnatural is trying to convince a automotive site owner that they should not establish their brand presence there, where it rightfully belongs. Gee. There's 1000 legitimate links for your automotive site, and you shouldn't have them. Now, THAT argument makes no sense.

I have never seen a negative effect, when this work is done right, as I described above in a previous post. Not once. People can imagine one, if they want, I suppose. They can imagine that the sky falling, as well.

"When was the last time you saw a local (regional) automotive site that had a 1,000 natural backlinks? We'll exclude the big names as they are usually national and 1,000 links may be natural."

I have seen it when they have set out to brand their site via reciprocation. I see it all the time.

What differnece is a regional site from a national one? Everyone registers their domain with INTERNIC. When Bezos registered Amazon. com, should he have been penalized for being an unknown? Same goes for every other successful dot.com. They were all once just a concept, with no traffic and no established presence. Many busted. Some did not. Using your logic, only large, established companies would have any right to good search resutls.

Are you saying that national brands are the only sites that deserve a lot of links? I am completely confused by the above statement, with your trying to establish who should and should not have more links.

Sorry, I just can't follow your logic. To me, links via reciprocation are a branding funciton, not an SEO function. It just so happens that, when it's done correctly, it effects the search engines. Good search results derive from good branding. But I'm very old school. I was doing it before anyone in SEO paid much attention to reciprocation.

Frankly, I think most people in SEO are completely confused by reciprocation, the purpose, and it's effect on search, based on what they say in their own writings. But then, they start from an SEO-perspective, not a branding perspective. I see it as branding first, SEO second. Always have, always, will.

I say that with full knowledge that our clients tend to come to us with an SEO-first mentality. Many of them bring all kinds of whacky SEO concpets to the table. But we still proceed as if it is branding, and we explain that to them. If they want us to do things that we feel are improper, we turn them away.

Most of the time, they appreciate the sensibility that we bring to the table. It allows them to stop fretting about the sky falling, and other scare tactics that are rampant out here. It takes a lot of direct experience to do that with confidence.

There will alwyas be sites that reciprocate responsibly, within their realm of interest. Some will do it more than others, based on their own ambition to establish ther brand via reciprocation.

So far, I have 9 years of experience at this work, with hundreds of sites of all kinds. It is a very effective way to get where you want to go. That's why people will keep doing it, regardless of what anyone on these forums or anyone in SEO says.

You are welcome to disagree, and advise people against it. Then you have to find other ways to get links. Your client's competitors will be reciprocating with determination, during that same timeframe.

Then, later, we all get to see what works best.