Backward links

[gomzy]

Instead of looking around for nice sites, and then asking if they're interested in a link exchange with you, just scout around and look at where other people are getting links from.

Visit a site that's similar in topic to your site.I do this with various greeting sites.
Go to Google.com and type "link:www.yourwebsite.com or, on the Google Toolbar, click the i symbol, and select "Backward Links."This will list all backward links which you can link to or try to.

[edited by: Woz at 10:11 am (utc) on June 8, 2005]
[edit reason] No Sigs please, see TOS#13 [/edit]

[sem4u]

It is a good idea, but Google only shows a small sample of pages linking to a site.

You can also use the following:

linkdomain:www.example.com on Yahoo!
link:www.example.com on MSN

They should bring up more pages/sites than Google does.

[rj87uk]

What about going through a links page that you know have been exchanged (you will get a higher response rate ;)) after you do that you have say over 20 Other links pages... and go through all they links going to the new links pages... and again... and again...

[sem4u]

A great idea! Been doing it for a while... ;)

[imstillatwork]

I look for my direct competitors first, then comiple a list thet THEY link to. No visit each one of thoses, exchange, and check for a new links page on that site. you should be able to dig up hundreds of good links and compile a list in a matter of minutes, then go back and ask for exchanges.

[nickreynolds]

I'm a novice but I just search "my keyword reciprocal links" and find loads of sites with link exchange programmes.Bit worried about suggestions that excessive links could get Google penalization, am searching round these forums for more info on that

[jeffb]

>>Bit worried about suggestions that excessive links could get Google penalization, am searching round these forums for more info on that<<

From what I understand, any penalization for excessive links is set high enough that any NATURAL looking link growth would not trigger it. Google is not looking to slap down sites that are highly enough respected to attract a lot of people linking to them.

If you have 25 incoming links to your site and 15 more sites link to you this month, can Google determine whether they linked to you because you have a great site or because you struck a business arrangement to bring in those links? No way!

If, however, you have 25 incoming links one month and then, suddenly, 1000 more pages link to you the next, that's going to smell of trying to manipulate their system.

Grow your links at a rate that looks natural, and you should have no problems.

[LostOne]

Place "add a link" or "add url" on your links pages. You'd be suprised what kind of combination you will come up with having other links and descriptions on the pages themselves. I see a few "add link subject" in my logs and sure enough I get a few interested parties each day. Unfortunately many don't bother to read the two sentence rules above the add your information box. No adsense sites, must be on subject etc.

Free inbound links:)

[Dijkgraaf]

An interesting facet when checking back links.
I belong to several web rings (in fact I run a three), and seems Yahoo to recognise these as incoming links to my domain. Neither MSN or Google do however, even though Google must be following the web ring links as I see it hitting the home page of one ring up to 8 times a day.
It could be because the way Yahoo treats the 302 redirect pointing to another domain as being the same as a 301 redirect.