reciprocal link

[goneinthesun]

would google or yahoo have a problem with a directory that requiring reciprocal link?

thanks in advance for any input.

[webdude]

Some of this is discussed here...

[webmasterworld.com...]

...although there was a more in depth discussion that I cannot find anymore.

It appears that some believe (not necessarily my opinion though) that G might be analyzing a percentage of 2 way links and demoting a site for this. In other words, requiring a recprocal link to get in your directory would increase the percentage of 2 way links. 100% reciprocal may be bad. 50% (where 50% of the links are 2 way and the other 50% are just incoming) may be better. Could even be a sliding type of penaltly or downgrade.

I have 2 sites with directories, one requires a recip back the other does not. The one that is required took a hit from #1 to #8 for a competative search. The other that does not require a recip back (it's about 50% 2 way) didn't budge in the SERPs. Could be many factors that aren't even related for this. But who knows?

[tigger]

I would say yes, I had a directory that was strong for thousands of keywords that required a link back, that has now been dropped to the 4th page or worse and traffic from G has almost vanished. So if you are considering it I wouldn't