The Reciprocal Partnership

[paynt]

I’d like to keep the discussion The perfect link partner [webmasterworld.com] to numbered points. From the discussion in Pumping it up! Let's Regroup and Talk [webmasterworld.com] I discovered other questions members are wondering about that can be grouped in this discussion. Everyone promised to join in so let us see what we can come up for these. I hope members will also post other related questions. We should be able to get 100 posts from this, just look at the following questions.

How to interact with other webmasters effectively in regards to links, reciprocal or otherwise. - ken_b

ways of developing linking relationships - Marcia

In Should I link this Guy? [webmasterworld.com]

I link other people, but when it comes to people mentioning PR I cringe. - EliteWeb

In our efforts to build quality link campaigns you will find members of the community evolving beyond PR, while the outside world is just catching on to PR. There appears to be a dilemma with this. I start to wonder does education come in with regards to partnerships? Would you send your partners here to the forums for advice and help? Do you see wisdom in bringing up the level of linking in the industry? Is an educated linking partner a better partner? Be sure to respond to EliteWeb in his discussion, I’m not hijacking it here, just curious if others feel as I do about educating the industry.

[SEO practioner]

WooHoo paynt... Youv'e done it again-
great!

Now let me see here, where do I start...

[SEO practioner]

I link other people, but when it comes to people mentioning PR I cringe. - EliteWeb

Well, not sure why you would cringe Elite... care to extrapolate here a bit

[4eyes]

Reciprocal links worry me.

For some time now I have been trying to change my mindset on all SEO, not just link building.

Don't do SEO for where SEs are now - do it for where you think they will be in 12 months. i.e. build for long term stability.

How does this affect link building?

Reciprocal links will continue to decrease in value as time goes on. They no longer represent a 'vote' but are more of a 'business arrangement' and obviously this has less value.

So whats next?

Develop a strategy for attracting non-reciprocal links and when you get them, help them out with their SEO if it is needed.

In my previous career I practised 'supply chain management' - this is the same process.

Forget page rank, think relevant traffic, incoming link text and on-theme. Acquire them, nurture them and train them where it is needed.

[webwoman]

The best links I have are the ones that were earned by either a)providing relevant material b)offering an article to an e-zine which is of interest to people in the industry c)*actual* business affiliates (resellers of our product, or consultants sites, etc.) - in other words, other companies who we actually know and do business with! These links provide leads and traffic to the site, the PR that comes from them is an added bonus.

I just spent the entire day getting what I call 'junk' leads - purely for PR. I am sure I will never get any actual referrals from these sites, but I felt I had to do it because one of my new sites needs to build PR and I gotta start somewhere, quick and dirty.

I think both methods of link building have a purpose and value.

[SEO practioner]

webwoman and 4 eyes I agree

I feel the same way when you say that PR, for the sake of PR will probably go down in value as time goes by. Google will probably improve it's algo again and come up with new suggestions for us.

In the mean time, I am busy writing good, on-topic content for the sites I take care of. I think content is a time-proven thing. The people in real-estate say: location-location-location. I think we should all say:

content-content-content

The "Build it and they will come" scenario I think is very much alive as far as seo is concerned.