How do I not discourage sites from trading links?

Thought some webmasters may not want to trade if their link is buried.

[Mitch]

I want to get recipricol links established with other web sites with similar content. However, as the number of sites on my related sites page grows, I fear that other sites my not want to link with me because the link to their site would be buried among hundreds of others. Any suggestions?

Also, please let me know what has worked for you for your link building campaign.

[rogerd]

Hi, Mitch, and welcome to WMW! You are right - if the link is difficult to find, you'll get a less welcoming response from a potential link partner.

My suggestions would include:

Do a well-organized link directory with topical pages of links (as the numbers grow). Provide easy navigation to each link page by topic. Make the links attractive, and include a site description, not just a URL or site name link. Be sure your links pages are easy to find from your home page.

My personal list of link-page irritations (I've seen all of these from people requesting a reciprocal link):

1) Too many links - a page with 400 links is not going to be useful to anyone who stumbles across it.

2) Buried links page - webmasters send a URL, but I can't find a way to the URL from the site's home page (without running a site tool like Xenu).

3) Disorganized links - people create a links page with no organization at all; again, this makes it almost useless to the visitor who finds it.

Note that if you are getting a link from a high PR site, you may find the link desirable even if the setting isn't too great. Nevertheless, I'm not bashful about rejecting link requests and telling the webmaster why.

[brotherhood of LAN]

Im using FDSE to hold all my external links. Although the number of links grows in the search engine the principle remains the same

i.e. if they have the right keywords and relevant content, then the people looking for such content amongst the many links in the FDSE engine will hit their site.

i.e. i have a biology site, and if im trading links with a biotechnology site, then chances are any visitors looking for a biotechnology site will find his.

I think this is better than the hit and miss chance of getting a click through on a "links page". Many biology sites have a huge links page with thousands of links, whereas i prefer to keep pages small!!!

I suggest setting up something similar :)

It works for me! A few of the high PR sites are happy with my links because they rank well on the search engine on my site, so even though my site is smaller, they probably get the same reciprocal traffic as they send me :)

its an option

[seth_wilde]

Because most people don't go back to check link 6 months after the fact... you could try putting the newer ones at the top of the list..

[rogerd]

Brotherhood's search engine is a good idea - whether you use a free service like Atomz or your own script, providing an easy search feature really helps. On one site that has a lot of content plus a very large (100+ pages) link directory, I added a special search box just for the directory listings. It worked well, and last time I checked was getting a few hundred searches every week. That's good value for your linkees.