Is reciprocal linking dead?

I heard it is..

[helohelo]

Is reciprocal linking dead? i herad google counts reciprocal links as less importent thetn a sole inbound link these days. Any clue?

[StupidScript]

I believe this also points out the relative importance (or non-importance) or PR in the whole scheme of things. Basically, it's looking like PR matters most to those who sell links on their PR+ pages, where it doesn't matter much to the searcher or the results delivered in whatever order by Google. IMHO.

(Slightly off-topic...sorry.)

[Webdetective]

And do you mean that they Directories are valued more? I again disagree. Im sure martinibuster has also said that there are better places and dmoz etc arent valued more...

Probably true. Actually being listed in the Google Directory is worth far more, but I think you have to get listed on dmoz in order to be listed there.

One of my sites had a listing on Google Directory, PR 5 on the homepage, but when my link was one day dropped from there, when Google was "cleaning up house" (removing affiliate sites), my site dropped one pagerank to 4 and I lost 60% of my link popularity mostly coming from internal backlinks as my other pages lost PR too. It took me 6 months to rebuild what I lost.

[rj87uk]

>> It took me 6 months to rebuild what I lost.

Are you sure 60% of link pop? That seems alot!

maybe they changed an algo at the time... putting less importance of certain areas... etc

an example of a better link would be...

say you have a car website and you got your link on a home page of another company like your own... sounds small but that would help traffic as well as link pop dont you think?

[Skylo]

>>say you have a car website and you got your link on a home page of another company like your own... sounds small but that would help traffic as well as link pop dont you think?

I highly doubt that direct competition are likely to do this. Would you have your car serviced by your competition?
I tend to stay away from competition. Keeping on topic though, i am sure that one day Linking will hold no relevance(pending new technologies) but for now keep doing what works for you. Even if you feel it is not helping(it soon will), slug it out and get those links:)

[rj87uk]

> I highly doubt that direct competition are likely to do this.

Troo :)

I wasnt meaning say direct competition, but on very close lines maybe car wheels might have your car hire website on the index page, but im sure your getting the just!

Heh
I wonder what would happen If links where no use what then...

[mm1220]

Does anybody actually engage in reciprocal linking anymore purely to gain traffic as opposed to boosting themselves in google?

Because I can't remember the last time I went to a website's links page. I believe that natural linking, say in the course of an article/blog etc is far more valuable traffic wise.

[stef25]

in my limited experience, a good way to obtain links to your site is taking part in forum discussions, and having a link to your site in your sig. also in usenet groups.

it appears that alot of websites incorporate usenet postings in their website, kind of like syndicating an rss feed. that's what i notice when i google +www.xyz.com

if you make good postings and contributions without directly promoting your site im sure this is ok as far as web ethics go?

[rj87uk]

> and having a link to your site in your sig

So is this ok in the eyes of everyone?

I mean might it be seen as spam...?

[ogletree]

It is against G rules to do any link that helps your site rank better that would not happen naturaly. Some people consider it spam some don't. It is just up to you what you feel. As far as it hurting you there is no reason to worry. Worst case it won't help you. It can't hurt you.

[stef25]

another problem with this is that your posts will in most cases end up in pages with a low PR, or no PR at all

but if the content of your posts is good, and relevant to the page you have in the sig, people will be inclined to check it out

for example the usenet group for webdesign, ecommerce etc for my country has people putting up posts with honest objective advise and they have a link to their webdesign company URL in the sig. that can only help ...

[Webdetective]

Unbelievably, I have actually gained some link popularity on Google from 2-year old link farm pages on other sites dating back to when I was participating in one (one that got me into trouble with Google long ago).

I've been told one of the best sources of link popularity is actually internal backlinks from your other pages on your own site, but they must be PR 4+.

What are the most recommended places to look for sites who are exchanging links besides linkpartners? I think I've exhausted that source. I tried looking in dmoz and Google Directory but found extremely few related sites there who are exchanging links. Sometimes I look in other site's links pages. There are other better ways to get links, such as publishing articles, but that's not easy to do for affiliate products.

[webnewton]

It's not that reciprocal linking is counted less.

It's that one-way is counted more.

I agree Martinibuster.

[Webdetective]

I've been told the best ways to get one-way links is either by writing and publishing articles containing your link, for other webmasters to borrow as free content for their sites, or else by buying links (which gets expensive).

Doing reciprocal links is a good quick easy way to start building link popularity for a new site, but some people claim to have had good success with it.

[edited by: martinibuster at 3:55 pm (utc) on Aug. 12, 2004]
[edit reason] Split post into new thread [/edit]

[snakebaby]

Nothing is sure and we are all just guessing - that's for sure!

In my opinion (based on my observations, common sense, gut feelings + guessing), reciprocal links would eventually be ignored by google since they are pretty much meaningless (don't you agree?). Relevant content adds usefulness for our visitors, but do you really want to send traffic to other sites if that takes away your potential sales? If a site owner feels your link is useful, then just add it, why bother asking for returns? By asking for a link back itself dampens (in reality for now) the true meaning of adding your link (the true meaning in theory lost completely).

If you all say recip link is not dead and will not be dead, but would you ask 'will it possibly be dead one day?'. I have decided not to take this chance. Natural links always and should work, not only better, but works best. I just have to request others for non-reciprocal link exchanges. Yes, it is still artificial (what are the chances that others would add our links to their sites naturally?) but I have no choice, and it will be viewed as natural links by google and I believe it is hard for them to detect such link exchanges as artificial.

Anyway, hope I made my point.

Best

[snakebaby]

I forgot to add one more piece you guys may or may not have experienced or heard.

Recip link or not, natural link or not, today the google traffic ranking is pretty much controlled by man mind in a whatever way that produces more revenue for google.

Unless your site has enough natural links (like Amazon, msn, shopping.com, etc), you are always at risk of losing your traffic big time one day. Web sites take turns to be on the top. New sites get better ranking and old ones get pushed down until they are pushed out completely. Why? They want all of us taste the sweetness of having good traffic and then take it away at a later time (either it takes couple of years or 5, 6 years). Then you would have no choice but thinking about paid advertising.

msn and yahoo tries to do the same but with different strategies. My guess is that they don't weigh on recip links. They are more into SEO. But they kick out sites from time to time without any reasons and again you have to think about paid service when that happens to your site.

I've experienced all these, that's why I can say that (with other observations and unofficial resources, of course).

In a word, try to build up natural links only and think about paid services which is a true long term solution.

[Webmeister]

The search engines have no way of tracking which links are reciprocal and which are non-reciprocal because a link path may bounce off several different web pages before a return link is found.

[snakebaby]

So you always want others add your link on a higher pr page with less clicks (even on their home pages) while yourself try to hide others' links (by adding it to a deeper page) - why? - Because you are trying to build 'one way' link after all!

Or if google can't find other's links on your site then it also can't find your link on other's sites.

Have I made any point or missed anything?

[Webmeister]

I posted a very informative thread on this debate, but it got deleted. What is going on around here?

[Webdetective]

Webmeister,
The moderator probably deleted it for violating the forum TOS or posting rules. This forum has some very strict posting rules, the strictest I've seen anywhere. We're not allowed to post any URLs or "specifics" here. They want you to "widgetize" everything. I've had plenty of my posts deleted or edited myself too, and have also been repremanded by forum moderators in private, so you're not alone.

It sounds like you had some great ideas to share. If you would like, please feel free to share them with me in private.

I think Google and other search engines may be able to tell you're using reciprocal linking by finding out you have a links directory system such as Linksmanager in place, especially if it's full of links.

[helohelo]

I want to thank everyone who has contributed too this discussion so far.

Can Google realy 'see' if you are using a reciprocal link script?
I think they compare outgoing links to incomming links...if the do anything such.

[rj87uk]

" The search engines have no way of tracking which links are reciprocal and which are non-reciprocal because a link path may bounce off several different web pages before a return link is found.
"

Hi,

I am not sure i agree with this In my small mind what i think Google does is see a whole website, see a list of outbound links and inbound links, imagine this for every website? would they not be able to runa Simple script on each site to look cross look the links? Is that not how they find out if your spaming links etc etc?

I do agree with your links in content fact. So here is a question!

Where will I find websites that would let me submit such information? My company and area changes all the time new things are happening every week!
I think i could make something of this if i could find out where to give this info to...?

rj - Its early in the morning here forgive the grammar :p

[JohnieWalker]

Unless your site has enough natural links (like Amazon, msn, shopping.com, etc), you are always at risk of losing your traffic big time one day. Web sites take turns to be on the top.

New sites get better ranking and old ones get pushed down until they are pushed out completely.

Why? They want all of us taste the sweetness of having good traffic and then take it away at a later time (either it takes couple of years or 5, 6 years).

Then you would have no choice but thinking about paid advertising.

Do you really think G tracks the date you entered into their database, and once you're old enough you're pushed down?!

Sorry, but this is not the case.

It might be that you were on top one day, but while they worked to change alg - your site remained the same.

Why did they change? ask the spammers.

Yes, Google was always here looking for money. In their begining days they offered their search tool. However, the SERPs have nothing to do with their money or your site's age.

[snakebaby]

I didn't mean google tracks the age of our sites. How they decide what sites on top and what not I don't know. I'm saying what I said did not simpply base on my own experience.

I'm so busy learning how to make money from google adwords. I just want to throw out one thing - Wait for Your Turn! I'm sorry.

[osfp]

"So you always want others add your link on a higher pr page with less clicks"
the best way guys is if you administrate a big amount of High PR domains and add your one way links from there to every new domain(or a page or new pages of an existing domin) you want to bring slowly at the top

[mccleark]

I am new to really caring where I fit in search engines, most of the sites I have built have been somewhat obscure, and my competition has been scarce enough that I could get on the first results page without trying.

I have a few newbie questions about this thread. One, I am assuming that "backlinks" refers to sub pages linking back to the index, is this correct? Secondly, what is PR, and how is it determined?

Thanks for your time.

[chrisnrae]

Backlinks [webmasterworld.com] are all pages linking to a specific page. Whether they are internal backlinks (links from within your own site) or external backlinks (links to a page on your site from a page on a different site with a different domain).

PR = Pagerank [webmasterworld.com]

You may find this glossary [webmasterworld.com] useful in your travels.

[instinct]

Hi all, new guy here.

(A quick 'kudos' to everyone who posts regularly on this board is in order - I have been lurking here for a while, you guys truly rock!)

I have 2 questions related to this topic:

1) Assuming one-way links are better. Wouldn't it be possible just to bounce the reciprical link from your site off a third "throwaway" domain of your own via redirect? Am I wrong to think that many webmasters wouldn't care/notice you doing this? Obviously the good ones will realise it though.

(Not that I am considering doing this, because of the ethics issues it might raise. What do you all think?)

2) If you operate an affiliate program and have a bunch of affiliates linking to you, these would all count as one-way links right? It seems to me that this would be a great side benefit of running an affiliate program. True or false?

-Instinct

[rj87uk]

In general affiliate links will not help your website as it does not pass page rank...

rj

Welcome to WebmasterWorld! :-)

[instinct]

Thanks for the welcome rj!

I was wondering how the bot would 'know' it was an affiliate link and not a link to a dynamically generated page?

But then I guess it wouldn't matter because the pagerank would be passed to that non-existant page(?)

ie www.foo.com/index?12345

[edited by: martinibuster at 12:04 pm (utc) on Sep. 18, 2004]
[edit reason] spelling [/edit]

[Webdetective]

I use server re-directs to my affiliate links on all my sites using .htaccess. It's a good way to hide ugly affiliate links and makes it so you can edit or change your affiliate links as they change in one easy snap. I don't think they have any effect on ranking. I think the search engines simply ignore them.
Fred