Link exchanges giving me a headache

afraid of getting the boot

[troi21]

My site offers a range of products and services, not really linked to a single theme. In the interest of promotion and link building I have been targetting sites that I think will increase my traffic or just help in branding. The major problem is that most of these sites (say 80%) require reciprocal links. I don't have a problem with that but soon my link directory will start to look like a link farm ( I will have about 100 links in all, in separate categories on separate pages). How do I avoid this? I am building content because I have an article section with new articles related to my services and products every two - four weeks. Is there a possibility I could get banned for this?

[fathom]

Then why have a "links page", outgoing links can be on every page.

I find it better if you find a quality link on a specific theme that you also have ask them to link to that page, then have your outgoing link from the page they are linking to.

I personally try and stay away from links pages.

[freejung]

I really don't think you are likely to be banned for this. I have a links directory which links to an extensive "neighborhood" of related sites, many of which also link to each other through link pages, some of which have thousands of links per page (I have tried to get them to break these up into separate pages, with some success). I have yet to see any of the sites in my neighborhood be penalized for this, in fact, many of them, including my own site, are doing quite well.

Personally, I think the whole paranoia trip about linking is overblown, I say go ahead and trade links, just make sure you look at the sites you link to and don't link to junk sites.