Reciprocal links - How best to create a links page?

Any thing I need to note - like not too much links etc.?

[whiteperfect]

Any help on this? :)

[SlowMove]

I'm sure there are others, but here are a few:

• Don't link to "bad neighborhoods"
  
• Keep it at or under 100 links per page
  
• Use appropriate anchor text
  
• Possibly include the url text(not as anchor text) at the bottom of the listing for the search engines
  
• Always include information on this page telling how to link to your site
  

[whiteperfect]

Thanks for the great start - will take note of that and categorise my links when it starts getting tooo much.

By the way, regarding Anchor Text - I read somewhere that I should not tell people what anchor text to put on their page as it may affect my Rankings if all anchor text used by others to link to me is the same - is there any truth in this?

[whiteperfect]

Oh by the way, regarding Point 1 - Don't link to bad neighbourhoods -

Any website that does not have PR0 should not be a "bad neighbourhood" right?

[SlowMove]

By the way, regarding Anchor Text - I read somewhere that I should not tell people what anchor text to put on their page as it may affect my Rankings if all anchor text used by others to link to me is the same - is there any truth in this?

I don't know, but when I tell people what to use as anchor text, I keep changing it around so that it's not all the same.

Any website that does not have PR0 should not be a "bad neighbourhood" right?

New sites could be PR0, but I generally won't link to them regardless. PR4 or better sites only, and then if anything looks spammy(backlinks, outbound links, etc), I won't link to them. It's not worth it.

[whiteperfect]

Thanks :) I am a PR0 site - started recently - any "tips" on getting up in PR slightly faster as reciprocal linking is really hard when you are PR0 - we all start somewhere hehe

By the way, do you provide the full HREF to paste or just the Title, description and URL to link to?

[martinibuster]

Those are great tips, SlowMove.

One thing I find is best for me, my link partners, and my readers, is to categorize my link partners into their respective industries. You then accomplish the goal of reciprocal link exchange in a way that creates value to your partners and your site visitors.

Anyone else have something to share?

[whiteperfect]

Thanks for joining in the discussion Martini :)

[yowza]

Don't name your page links.php, links.htm, links.asp, or anything with the word "link" in it.

[whiteperfect]

Wow would that affect it? :)

[topr8]

if you want people to exchange links with you, then make your pages attractive to your prospects, group by category like a directory, have multiple pages, allow people whatever descriptions they like, don't use redirects or click counters on the outgoing links, give the pages decent titles (eg not links - as said above), don't cram too many links onto the page, make the links page directory index findable from the site (orphan links pages are common and my pet peeve!)

[martinibuster]

...give the pages decent titles (eg not links - as said above)

Yup. This represents an overlooked opportunity to bring more visitors to your website. Instead of Links or Partners, fashion it into "A guide to [city] Industry Websites."

Don't just make it a page of links, either. Put the contact information for businesses that don't have websites into there as well. You would be amazed how many people are looking for "[Your Industry] in [city]," this represents traffic that may find your website helpful, may see you as an authority, may actually buy something, or may come back to buy something at a later time.

In any case, free traffic on a horizontally related keyword phrase can be a good thing, depending on your business.

[grandpa]

Its probably never said, but why not build your links with the same goal as the the rest of your site (presumably), for the person who just landed on that page. What do you want them to see? What would you want to see?

From there, incorporate good linking strategies.

[grandmac]

On not naming a page "links", if your file page name is already links and you rename the title at the top of your page itself does this help? I figured if I renamed the file itself then I will create dead links in the search engines because I have links to my links pages on the search engines already.
Did I make myself clear?
Carol

[topr8]

put it this way grandmac, i don't look too favourably when asked to exchange links with a page that is titled links, i think changing the title would be good,

personally i never change a page's filename, or if i do i leave the old one in place even if it just has a site map on it, listed pages are too valuable to scrap and it saves bothering with redirects.

[IITian]

I think it is important to build up reputation of being a fair and honest link partner, in order for long-term success.

It means creating high PR links pages only a couple of so clicks away from high-content pages, pages nicely organized so that links are easy to be found, not blocking any PR transfer unknown to the link partner, not diluting PR transfer by having zillions of internal links, linking to others based on their values to the visitors and not how that will help your PR and so on.

Link page should not be an after-thought just to increase SE ranking, but rather should be well integrated with the rest of the site.

[BuyDigitalMemory]

We have a new site (snipped) and are trying to build rankings with exchanging links. One of the partners said the we need to make sure we rank our links page? Are they talking about PR on our links page or something else.

Great info on this site! thanks!

[edited by: DaveAtIFG at 1:45 pm (utc) on May 27, 2004]
[edit reason] URL removed [/edit]

[2oddSox]

Welcome to WW, BuyDigitalMemory. Sounds (at least to me) that your partner was talking about the ranking of your links page. Some folk won't reciprocate with pages that aren't ranking themselves, as many links directories aren't. I could be wrong in my interpretation of his comment tho'.

And while I've got you, you should remove the reference to your website, as that sort of activity is frowned upon in these here parts ;)

[mcavill]

>we need to make sure we rank our links page? Are they talking about PR on our links page or something else.

I guess they are talking about getting some toolbar PR showing on your links pages, as some/most webmasters prefer their links to be listed on reasonable PR pages. Just build you links page as per any other page on your site, make sure is can be spidered and it should all be good.

(i'd remove your URL as it's against the TOS)

<added>I really need to learn to type faster round here</added>

[echamber623k]

Thanks for the info. Yes, this is all I can figure. I changed my login...yes, I should have read the TOS more carefully :)

Thanks for the help/patience for newbies like me.

[kenjack]

I hope I haven't missed this as I've read the whole discussion. But why not call your links page something like 'Links Partners' page. You all seem to agree that it's not a good idea to do so but why? Will the engines de-value such a page.
Cheers
Ken

[martinibuster]

That's a good question. It seems to be assumed that everyone knows, so here's some back story:

About a year or so ago it was noticed that Google had devalued all pages named links or partners. It seemed as if almost all websites across the web had their web pages named links or partners gray barred. Even Fortune 500 companies had their pages named, partners devalued.

The gray bars and white bars have for the most part gone away, but apparently some people still see this from time to time. It's smart to take that incident into consideration, as well as what is good for your user.

Here's a recent thread about it:
Why should Links pages not be named Links?
[webmasterworld.com...]

And if you dig around you'll likely find more related threads.

[guynouk]

Instead of having a dedicated links page - why not spread your links around your site. I'd say that was the 'natural' way.

[alika]

We have a links section grouped according to different niches of our site. One thing we've noticed about some folks requesting for reciprocal links is that their link pages are nowhere to be found on their homepage. There is no way for their users to actually find their links. Apparently, they create a link page for their reciprocal links and tuck them in a hidden corner of their site only for purposes of (a) showing to the reciprocal link partners that they indeed have a link back; and (b) search engine purposes.

We come from the old school wherein anything we do for our site -- the content, the structure, etc. -- are for the benefit of our users. If that brings in good SE results, then that's fine. We think that if we do a good job in developing our site and making it the best resource in our industry, good SE rankings will follow. And we've proven it to be true. It took years, but it paid off.

This thinking extends to our reciprocal link partners. We've now instituted a requirement wherein the link page must be accessible from their homepage, and not just a "hidden corner" in their site. How can we get traffic from their links pages if it is not accessible anywhere on their site? Our link page is accessible from every page on our site, and we want the same courtesy.

Also, with the G toolbar, we have made it a habit to be sure to periodically check back our links. First, to check if we are still on their pages (many times we find that our link has been removed -- so we make sure that we remove them as well). Second, to see if they are still in SE's good graces with the toolbar not showing a gray line. If it does, out they go. We do this at least one every 2 months.

[martinibuster]

guynouk makes a very good suggestion:

why not spread your links around your site. I'd say that was the 'natural' way.

Well, it depends on the website. For an ecommerce website, the most important consideration: Will it hinder my sales? I'm not sure it makes sense to spread the links around within a website whose focus is to send the reader to a shopping cart.

On the other hand, you can make an information site pretty helpful if you include links mixed up within the web pages.

Anybody think it's better to do away with any links page altogether?

Does the answer lie in a new model?

[grandmac]

Can you please explain these terms as relates to the negative aspect in link exchanges?

backlinks- What is this?

outbound links- Are not all the links you have on your links page or links on any pages you need to give someone credit for say graphics outbound links?

Thanks,
Carol

[mil2k]

about not linking to sites which are not PR 4 :-

1) If the site is asking you for a link and it is less than PR 4 you have to consider that the webmaster is serious about the link campaign. I generally link to such sites as I get preferred placement and within 2 to 3 months the page does get PR. Its sort of future investment.

2) There are not many sites which have PR 4 link pages. I would anyday accept PR 1,2,3 and above links.

Somethings which I caution against :-

1) Linking within the same group of website and not linking to sites outside this group.

2) Linking to websites in a group. I would be more cautious if most of these sites have similar design.

Hope that helps.

[rfung]

I've received a couple link exchange requests from sites whose links page is links.htm or similar, and I've started declining to exchange links with them unless they rename their links page to something else.

[pageoneresults]

My strategy has been to interweave the outbounds throughout the site. I also build pages that are specific to resources, favorites, etc. I've not named a links page links.htm in over 4 or 5 years. Never had any problems getting them indexed or getting respectable PR for them (in Google's case).

On my resources pages I like to use an

<ul>

or

<ol>

structure. Fashion your resource pages like the SERPs (title/description/image) and I think you'll be one step ahead of the game. I also like to include a small Logo of the linked resource. That provides brand identity for the resource and adds a little more credibility for you and your resource.

• No more than 20 outbounds from a single page. If you can keep it to 10 or less, that is even better.

• Don't exchange links just for the sake of exchanging links. Normally the type of campaign discussed in this thread is done automatically using a program. It is now 2004 June, this is a strategy that has very little if any positive return. From my perspective, it is a dated strategy and one that produces mostly garbage pages in the SERPs.

• If you find resources that are of value to your visitors, then by all means link to them. Follow the above advice from others in regards to bad neighborhoods. Most of your bad neighborhoods are going to come from your automated link exchange program.

• Once you link to those resources, don't expect a link in return. And don't threaten a webmaster with removal if they don't link back to you, it's the worse thing you can do!

• Be very careful with the number of inbounds links you get in a given period of time. If you suddenly jump from 50 inbounds to 500 inbounds, I believe that is going to raise a flag somewhere (it has been discussed here recently).

• Stay away from all of the PR hoarding tactics. Provide a simple text link to your resources.

• Stop sending out automated requests for link exchanges. A personal link exchange request between your property and one that you feel is of value to your visitors is in order. It's not the number of inbound links, but the quality of those inbound links that counts.

• Expect a linking campaign to be long term. Slowly develop your outbound links. Spread them out across your site. You know, the "don't put all of your eggs in one basket type of thing".

The above are just a few things to consider when growing your resources. Too many people are focused on the numbers thing.

Also, if you are using the generated output of an automated link exchange program, don't expect any long term success, or even short term for that matter. These types of link directories are getting purged from the index daily. Roll your own resource pages. Those automated link exchange programs leave easy to detect footprints. If you don't change the footprint, you will fall prey to whatever filters are in place to detect them.

[rfung]

Isn't the interesting thing that if you don't care about your links page, the actual people who suffer from it will be the destination of the outbound links?

If I exchanged links with you, and you have an automated program generates the links page for you, and a filter doesn't follow or rank or pass pr to them, I'm the one who suffers the consequence by exchanging and getting no (pr) benefits from it.

Granted, there are other benefits that one can get from a link exchange, but those are different kinds of transactions.