oddsod - 10:36 am on Mar 5, 2007 (gmt 0)

I'm broadly with Crush on this, though I'm not too sure about his numbers.

I simply reciprocate with other sites that are relevant to the client's realm of interest....The SERPs derive from that.

That the SERPs "dreive from that" is something you can prove (apart from quoting Matt)? It would be fair to require the same level of proof for assertions others make as you provide for the claims you put forward.

It's been a while since Google started apparently devaluing links from links pages. In fact, even links.htm pages that were around since before Google - and since before citation based ranking - seem to be completely devalued. And that seems to happen even when the links really are relevant, go to quality content and edu type sites, and haven't changed in the last 10 years. I believe Google's gone overboard with their link exchange paranoia and with protecting against manipulated links.

Which means that it makes even less sense now for reciprocals. The naive use "three way reciprocals" that they believe can't be detected algorithmically, LOL. It is generally accepted that you need lots of links to make a difference in SERPs for any meaningful term. The more links you've got the easier it is to spot three way linking. If you are my competitors please continue chasing these recip and three ways. ;)

Oh, and BTW everybody, I'm in pedantic mode. A reciprocal link is a link that's exchanged. "Reciprocal link exchange" is tautologous, annoying, and even more guaranteed to get your email straight into my delete folder.