Jane_Doe - 2:47 pm on Jul 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

I've found that for my sites, most people will honor link trades. However, I've noticed that there are certain areas (usually the higher profit areas) where people use every dirty trick in the book (and then some) regarding trades. I think a lot depends on the segment of the web you are working in. There are certain areas I usually never do trades in anymore because so few actually work out.

My favorite trade was one where the guy signed all of his emails "May God bless" and then after the trade promptly put a "noindex" metatag on his links page!

I've had people email me your link is up at so and so page, when it really wasn't. I think they count on a certain percent of people not really checking. Then of course there are the people who ask for reciprocal links first when all they really want is to harvest your email address. So they not only don't return the link, to add insult to injury then they start spamming you.

If you don't have automated software, then I've found it pays to just keep a master list of reciprocal link trades and then check them againts the backlinks for your sites in alltheweb and altavista every once in a while. I personally would not take the time to write to people asking why they dropped my link, most of them drop it to increase their own PR so they are not going to write you back and tell you that anyway.