Is Google discounting reciprocal links

[meingalls]

I have heard from some different SEO people that Google is now discounting or penalizing reciprocal links so you either have to pay for links on a directory type site or do three way links. Is this anyone else's experience? How valid is this opinion?

We are consulting on a new business which is entering into a very competitive market. It appears Google is trying to make it extremely difficult to show up organically, if this true. Are sites that have been on the web for awhile going to have their pagerank lowered because of existing reciprocal links or just sites that are starting out and trying to gather reciprocal links? Don't want to waste our client's time and money getting reciprocal links if the process has changed.

Thanks for the advice.

[martinibuster]

No.
No.
No.
No.
And uhm... no.

[sem4u]

I have heard from some different SEO people that Google is now discounting or penalizing reciprocal links...

Well you shouldn't listen to them then ;)

[Crush]

Not at all. Google could not even be bothered going after links pages. Which raises the question. When do you think they will?

[phantombookman]

My sites not only have reciprocal links but they are all interlinked to each other with few, if any, links from websites I do not control.

I keep it sensible, good content etc and they rank very well indeed. With everything I do I make sure it benefits the site and visitor - any SEO that is ONLY beneficial to rankings is always a gamble either now or in the future.

Regards
Rod

[chrisnrae]

No. This probably comes from a ton of recent debates that one ways may be more beneficial - and people seem to be taking it as those webmasters saying that recipricol linking no longer works - which isn't the case or what the ones I've seen discussing it were expressing. No idea where the penalized came from. Exchange and be merry ;).

[chakra]

this sometimes might be some false statements by some pay-for-listed-directory's owners to mislead others. Just IMHO.

[Nuttakorn]

Google doesn't want website owner has multiple website in their listing. Google may filter some link which has been come out from the same ip address (c class). Perhap, if you need more link , you should get in many different of website and ip address.