tedster - 11:33 pm on Jul 14, 2009 (gmt 0)

I basically agree. Link exchanges as described in this article are not toxic and always to be avoided.

However, you can only go so far with this approach. Extensive directories of exchanged links are not a major benefit, your backlink profile needs more diversity than that to really compete. But there's no reason to completely avoid reciprocal linking.

I had come to the conclusion that unless a site wanted to exchange links with you that had as-high or higher page rank, the link wouldn't do any good and could potentially hurt you.

Sorry that you misunderstood. Especially with relatively new sites, you can have a pleasant surprise as their PageRank grows and you got your link in on the ground floor.

The best criteria I know of is to think about whether backlinks would provide traffic that your site can serve, and whether your outbound links serve your visitors. Forget about the PR bar, look at quality - the kind any reasonable person can see when they load up a page.