Forum Moderators: open
The site I have is number 1 in google and msn for its phrase - which is a good phrase too - PR5 - and yet the best response I have had requesting for a link exchange is
"thanks - we are busy at the moment but will put a link up when we are ready".
They will forget.
My site isnt even commercial - no affiliate links - no product selling - however the people who go there always want information from me about buying.
In the big picture - this is serious - I could quite easily route them all off to product selling sites, but when they wont link back - why should I?
Its a tricky one is this.
Also, don't forget about quality while you're doing this. If there is a product-selling site selling fantastic stuff for fantastic prices, maybe you should do your visitors a favor by linking there even if they don't link back to you. The better the quality of your site, the more likely similarly themed sites will want to link to you, and will feel adequately honored by a link from you to consider linking to you.
BUT, if you are actually selling something, you want to 'capture' the visiting audience as much as possible, rather than send them away.
For example, one of my sites has a PR7 competitor that has a "Competitors Page" that lists us and others, complete with links to our sites with a description: "We are much cheaper than they are!" for each competitor.
My little PR5 site gets 50 to 100 referrals from that page every day! Shhhh, don't tell them.
Maybe some areas are more cutthroat than others. Other sites have more to gain by having you link to them than they have to lose by linking to you. They're making bad calculations. I think you can blame ignorance or the business environment for that -- but I don't think Google has much to do with it.
However, since I always put a link on my site before asking, maybe their game is to do nothing and get the PR from my site for a month before I give up and remove the link. If you have 20 or so suckers that are waiting for reciprocal links during any given month, wouldn't that provide a nice PR pop for all those "one way" links?
The worst case is a guy asking me to put a link up to his new product. I promptly complied and asked if he could put me on his link page in return. No response back after 2 emails and 3 weeks. Now I’m mad… his link is coming off tonight!
Yeah, there may be too much focus today about draining PR. My sites are amateur, and a few days ago I got a request for a reciprocal link from a new, related site that doesn't have any links yet. My first thought was about the PR drain. :(
On average, 4 or 5 agree to the link and many times they link without wanting one in return.
It is an ongoing process that I dedicate about 2 hours a day to each and every day.
I suspect that is probably pretty typical. Now if you were a professional seo or website developer and charged your client for your time at the going rate (say $50 per hour?)that would be about $700 per week for links development and management.
Time was that when reciprocal links were just that, you did not have to factor in a links management cost. Now it is an mandatory part of the site development. Google gets to be an expensive kind of cheap pretty quickly.
However, since I always put a link on my site before asking, maybe their game is to do nothing and get the PR from my site for a month
I read PR as Public Relations here :)
Perhaps that's what you're doing wrong. Try to ask to exchange links first, before putting a link up.
A few good quality links in and good on site content works well. If I was google, I would not rank sites on number of links in. This all too often is more of an indication of how good the webmaster is at getting links in, rather than quality of content. But this is just a personal opinion and I admit I could be very wrong!
Perhaps that's what you're doing wrong. Try to ask to exchange links first, before putting a link up.
I think you're right, HitProf. These webmasters are probably counting on there being a bunch of unreciprocated links to them at any time. They probably also hope that we'll forget to remove the links when they don't reciprocate, and that probably does happen a fair amount of the time.
I only ask for a reciprocal link if the site in question offers something to my visitors -- and I don't generally put the link up first -- but if I'm asked for a reciprocal link I'll generally oblige unless there's a good reason not to.
How do they do it? They have a website award program, a little 120x120 graphic for the award which links back to them.
What is the general concencus on useless awards? I never saw their value until last night
Link first, then request link back, then remind, then check, then check, then remove link. (Two week process)
To:
Request link exchange, receive a yes, add the link, no response, no link. (5 minute process)
This will be much less work. Perhaps the success rate will be a bit lower but I will be able to make a lot more requests and in the end get more link backs.
Very good observation. I'll send you my "smart webmaster" award ;)
Isn't it just like the "booby approved", "valid w3c html", "valid w3c css" and "get Acrobat Reader" links?
They really are useless, present company excepted.
However, they generate a windfall of backlinks. I guess it's time to start issuing my own.
Then approach the free loaders and say "I'm getting a lot of traffic for my affiliates who are making lots of money, I will list you too for FREE but all I need is a link back."
I'm sure that will motivate them to sign up more while putting money in your pocket and not compromising the integrity of your site. Win-Win for everyone.
