Link Exchange Page [many sites, same page]

[WhiteUnicorn]

I have a page on my site which lists & links to maybe some other sites in the same business [all online bookstores]. In return those sites have basically the same page on their site.

Is this likely to be good or bad for the sites involved? Is there an approximate number of participants where maybe it turns from 'good' to 'bad'?

If it is bad would a 'round robin link list' be any better [A links to B links to C links to A, so maybe three different pages or so]?

[martinibuster]

Answers:
Question 1: No.
Question 2: No.
Question 3: No.

[keyplyr]

Hello WhiteUnicorn and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

I agree with martinibuster. Links exchanges stopped being beneficial years ago and may actually be detrimental. They could be deemed spammy by Google, especially with a short chain like that.

[JesterMagic]

The last time I followed this was when Matt Cutts represented Google. If I recall he said a minimum number of links was okay (never did say what a minimum was). A lot of has change since then though.

If it is a low amount of links then I don't think it is really hurting the sites, but then again they are not really benefiting them either unless your visitors use the pages. You could nofollow the links which would help.

In the end though, Google has repeatedly said they don't like artificial links. Whether it is coming from guest blog posts or a web widget there has been a lot of discussion from Google these past few years on why they are bad. If I were you I would do as suggested above and remove the page.

[WhiteUnicorn]

Thank you all for your answers. Due to other things getting in the way, it has been some time since I've been able to do anything on our site. As I get around to updating things, I will remove that page.

However, if anyone else has something to say, I would appreciate seeing it.

Thanks again

[lucy24]

Ahem. Cough-cough. Are these links used by humans? (Generally we tell people to look at site access logs. This is the rare case where only script-based analytics will give you the information.)