Forum Moderators: martinibuster
If you're like me, you've eliminated Reciprocals as a possibility, either because they are basically penalized, or because most webmasters won't touch them with a 50 foot pole. Triangular links are pretty much the same, it seems, in that it is actually almost IMPOSSIBLE to reach webmasters at all these days. I understand this, as at this point the useless Spam link exchanges I get are at the 99% level. I have not seen a reasonable link exchange request in at least 1 year.
Now I'm reading (and feeling, actually), that Paid links via Text Link Ads and others are now becoming useless. As many of you know, these are expensive to start with, but to find them actually becoming Money Pits has left me a bit lost. Are there any other places where good links can be bought? Am I missing out?
You'll pardon me if I'm sounding a bit doomy, but a lot of this comes after years of banging my head against the wall. I'd love to hear from anyone on this.
Link pages and link directories were quick and easy and hence we saw many people use link pages. Then came link directories (it was very difficult to put 100's of links on few pages).
Google tried to combat it (first by banning sites which used Zeus link development software. The software left a signature and all such link pages became PR 0). Then people here reported that pages with names like "links.htm" or "resources.htm" were getting either gray bar or PR 0 (This was temporary).
Then came the no follow suggestion from Google saying hey guys why don't you put this on your advertisements or paid links.
Few months back, Google started it's campaign against paid links.
The feedback I get from my team is reciprocal links still work. But, if you have too many links it can hurt you if Google does a manual site review.
Linking out from articles is the best bet in short term. Or linking from Blogs (you scratch my back and I will scratch yours). It is getting difficult day by day to stay ahead of the game.
If you want long term results, think outside the box (which means revisit old threads on linking ideas in the Library ).
So if one engineer says recips are natural and another trashes them, the reasonable use of them is probably okay. That's the current of all SEO: natural/reasonable.
I agree with the ideas promoted here of links within articles. Not only are these most natural, they are also, I suspect, most difficult to be interpreted as manipulative.
But if your site doesn't have a lot of articles (e.g., a product site), that could be a problem. (I hate having to create content just to please search engines, knowing users will usually ignore it.)
What I'm seeing competitors do now is, and this is perhaps because there's so much suspicion that Google is virtually omniscient, is buy sites with good history and high page rank and great SERPs (excellent "profiles"), and then link them. They get a hot link from an authority site.
How exactly is Google going to figure out the scheme?
You know, after all the schemes Google has flushed out and targeted, what exactly is there left for it to target?
For to TS who has virtually given up on link exchanges due to spam (99% useless offers), one option is to consider mailed requests. That is if you're a business or not anon and don't mind making your address public. You'll still get junk mail, but a lot less.
I would really like Google to develop a better reporting system for scheming sites that would be kicked hard as soon as they got a manual review. I hate seeing junk sites with one or two pages get treated as if they are the best thing online.
Top ten sites in very competitive sectors should all be reviewed by people instead of just algorithms.
p/g
Buying competitors has been around way before Google and the Internet were invented. Nothing wrong with this. Not Google's business.
Rent a managed server and offer to host nonprofits for free or at a deep discount, and they will link to you, and they are usually linked to by .gov sites and .edu sites.
If your are a developer, offer your services for free or at a deep discount, to others, and they will link to you.
Provide a place for anyone to publish content for free or at a deep discount, and they will link to you.
Provide a quick reference to specific [ niche ] content sites, and they will link to you.
Publish your local sunrise, sunset times, daylight hours, and average temperatures etc, and they will link to you.
Create a flash of a street billboard as it changes over the year on a corner near you, and they will link to you.
Create a two page formatted page layout as a test, and explain the process of doing it, and they will link to you.
And on and on.
So I agree, with the argument that not all recip liks are dead, only irrelevent stupid ones.
Thank you!
Tiffani
Reciprocal linking is simply when two sites link to each other.
Site A links to site B, and site B links to site A.
And I only get reciprocal links from related sites with a fair PR or have potential for it. I only have about 10 at the most!
I believe that if you just do things naturally and keep away from any iffy websites, it will all be fine.
I have also scored a few links on .edu sites (one way) which I am hoping will benefit my site...But who knows?
That is the question? Who really knows? As soon as you think you do know, it changes..
Awesome, thought-provoking post, Minnapple!
[edited by: AnonyMouse at 1:38 pm (utc) on Feb. 29, 2008]
In their case, they link to one of their topics, and in return they link back to another page with a different topic - not excessively either. This is mixed with a few links o/bound to key reference material, which is not reciprocated. It's just their technique and it appears to work well.
All SERP results are competitive and linking is still key to Google's methods of ranking. Just keep things balanced and avoid the temptation to rely on short term advantages and high intensity if you want a sustainable site.
