Planet13 - 6:40 am on Feb 14, 2011 (gmt 0)

I would search the forum instead for link exchange and see what sorts of thoughts you get.

I am going to guess that there will be a wide variety of opinions on the subject, Many will say to avoid link exchange / reciprocal linking at all costs. Others will say it has helped their sites out tremendously.

It does seem to have quite a bit of value in certain areas; for instance, one of my competitors seems to rank at number 1 for a particular two-word keyword phrase with only reciprocal linking - mostly from sties that are not related to his.

If you decide to do link exchange, it is probably best to only link with closely related sites (that your visitors would find useful) that, in turn, only link out to other closely related sites in your niche.