Is it time to do link Exchange Again?

[seoskunk]

I was wondering if it was time to revisit link exchange as means of gaining traffic to your site. Exchanging links with other websites in that niche could bring some relevant traffic. So I checked out my old link program Linksmanager here is what I found

LinksManager was born on August 1, 1998 – before Google went online. LinksManager was designed and patented to manage the chore of linking. It was never designed or marketed to be a Search Engine Optimization product.

It was with great sadness that I put LinksManager to sleep on October 31, 2014. I simply could not stop the influx of cancellations coming in from customers preoccupied about comments made specifically to them by Google employees telling website operators to stop linking between websites. I reached out to Google via Fedex and their switchboard many times to discuss the matter. They never took my calls or replied to my sincere questions and comments. Not once.

source [linksmanager.com...]

Surely penalisation of link exchange to similar niche websites is restriction of trade isn't it?

[edited by: brotherhood_of_LAN at 9:22 pm (utc) on Apr 27, 2015]
[edit reason] shortened quote [/edit]

[Hinso]

I've been online for 16+ years. People clicked on reciprocal links when I started and they still do. Sometimes.

[EditorialGuy]

Heard that kind of crap too many times. If you work for Google, then you can state what they have a problem with, or don't have a problem with. Other than that, feel free to state that you think Google might do this or might do that. Apologies, but I get tired of the B.S.

Google's quality guidelines include the following in a list of "link schemes which can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results":

Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking

What's "excessive" may be in the eye of the beholder, but in any case, Google's guidelines make it clear that there's no blanket rule against link exchanges.

[webcentric]

What's "excessive" may be in the eye of the beholder, but in any case, Google's guidelines make it clear that there's no blanket rule against link exchanges.

The algorithms and (maybe humans) at Google are enforcing something. If not a rule, then what? I think most here would simply like to understand Google's definition of "excessive." Having said that, I think most here also have a real good idea of what "excessive" is. I mean, how many links can a (pick your industry) website really expect to get in the course of a week. If most mom & pop sites pick up one or two links a week or even a month, that's probably great growth. Shouldn't be too hard to separate sites that get way above the average (and then turn around and link back to everyone linking to them regardless if it makes sense or not).

I think this is really simple. Exchange links when it makes sense to do so and be really stringent about making sure they make sense outside of the context of Google. I don't think volume is anywhere near as important as quality these days. In fact, I'm pretty sure, volume is what's getting most people into trouble where linking is concerned. I watch pages rise in the SERPs after getting a single natural link from a quality site. I'm betting plenty here have seen rankings drop as a direct result of poor quality links too. Do the math.

[Rob_Banks]

@EditorialGuy,

Did I ask something about link schemes?

If you are going to quote me, please make sure you understand the context of my post. I was referencing people who post as if they have some huge insight into internal practices at Google while those same posters are not actually employed by Google.

If you've actually read the thread, did you think I didn't understand a link scheme? I've seen many people with link schemes and thousands of doorway pages do well for limited time periods. Eventually it comes back to bite you.

@webcentric,

I don't seek out link exchange anymore. Sad, but after having enough people burn, cloak, delete links I honestly recipped, I just walked away. There are still tons of high quality links out there, but they often have to be earned.

[guggi2000]

Only if it makes sense to your visitors and to the other sites' visitors.

[Kratos]

So you're telling me Google is going to penalize you if you have a blog about growing flowers and you have a fellow webmaster who has a blog about the different soils and geology, you link to him in a post about the types of soils where flowers grow best and then in 8 weeks he links to you in a post where he talks about the types of flowers that grow best in alkaline soil? Seriously?

LOL what Google is referring to (mostly) is what people used to do with those web rings from the past, only that instead of using that web ring script (which I believe didn't pass PR but only because of how it was set up as nofollow wasn't created yet), they simply have a resources pages linking to each other or they have a page that says "Links" where they link to each other. This was the craze in the mid 2000s and Google noticed that as these pages usually had a lot of PR from being in the menu. This wasn't done to pass PR, it was just bloggers linking to each other as useful resources. However, it got out of hand (thanks as usual to our black hat friends who always abuse anything that is good for the web) and Google acted on it.

Also remember that Google is a bit lax with their rules if your site is clean. However if you're using a spamming script like GSA SER or you have thin content merely created to attract search engines and also asking every blogger on your industry to link to you and you link back to them, then of course you're going to have problems as Google has priorly red flagged you from sending thousands of links daily to your site.

[toidi]

If the goog actually saw a page labeled "links" or "resources" as manipulation, they could very easily just ignore those links. They are pretty clever, correct?

Instead, they penalized those enire sites and effectively stopped sites from exchanging links. A drastic move that resulted in driving more traffic to their ad ladden search. They did not go after spammers, they went after lost searches. So much for user experience!

[netmeg]

The problem with links (as with every other tactic) is that once people finds something that works, they decide to scale it times 1000 until it doesn't work for anyone anymore, even the people who do it more moderately.

[webcentric]

The problem with links (as with every other tactic) is that once people finds something that works, they decide to scale it times 1000 until it doesn't work for anyone anymore,

Touche! In a nutshell.

[jmccormac]

Link exchange, as a concept, is quite deadly to Google because it works on the same basis as the original web directories in that if someone likes a particular site then they may like sites that the site owner has recommended. The result is that Google's greedy fangs are removed from the process.

Most of the problems Google has with links is plainly down to the low intellectual power of those trying to solve the problems of linkspam. Since most of them have never created any websites of value, they just don't understand that links, rather than Google, form the lifeblood of the web. It is easier for Google and its FUDbuddies and assorted pro-Google trolls to scare website owners into not linking to other sites than to fix the problems caused by linkspam. It is the kind of problem that requires a scalpel-like site-specific approach rather than the hammer-like total web approach that Google seems to use.

Google had a winning formula for a while but as Netmeg pointed out above, it was exploitable. The problem was that Google, rather than fixing the problem, tried fixing the symptoms. And when that didn't work, Google used its considerable SEO media FUDbuddy resources to convince people that linking is bad.

Linking is not a bad thing, especially when it is of use to the user. If your site does not depend on Google for traffic, then it may be used within reason. However the toxic nature of Google could result in the site being delisted for doing so. If you are in a ccTLD market, then linking might be far more essential than it would appear. In 2003, many ccTLD registries stopped publishing their zonefiles and new domains. This meant that Google and almost every other operator was in the dark as regards new ccTLD websites. But in the meantime, Google murdered web directories and many of them were actually some of the best sources on new ccTLD websites. It might be a risky strategy but if your site gets more traffic from direct use and Social Media, then it might be acceptable to start linking again.

Regards...jmcc

[tangor]

I think we all agree that linking is what makes the web work.

I think we all also agree that link exchanges as a business strategy to drive PR and traffic is dead as far as the big SEs are concerned.

That said, links are what makes the web work, and if there are links out from your site to others that make sense, then do them 'til the cows come home. But is one goes on a campaign of reciprocal linking as a business stretegy, that's not like to fare well.