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1 is judged by the company 1 keeps :)
I say SEs arent encouraging recip links at all, and 1 ways are a lot more favoured.
Can you imagine BBC being expected to Recip, no way.
Go for as many quality/relevant 1 ways as possible.
Shak
And because it is very popular within SEO. (check this forum and the google forum)
If everyone here is talking reciprocal linking, than you will have sites of which a predominant part of the inbound and external links are reciprocal. That is not what one would call a natural webgraph (link structure).
If you were a search engine reading these forums, would you neutralise any beneficial effects of overdoing this reciprocal stuff?
Of course it is natural to link back and forth within a community. For the rest, reciprocal links can happen by accident, but will never be a large chunk of a site's links.
Just link out as you feel you should without search engines.
And ask one way links for the content's value as it is.
Its ten times more difficult to get a one way link.
But it means your content has to be ten times better.
Nope, no recip link exchange here. Spam and management problems everywhere.
Another reason I can think of is looking after the the safety and comfort level of members.
There's probably little nowadays that has as much commercial value as far as search engine promotion goes as the business of seeking, exchanging and selling links and Page Rank. There are some whose whole business model is based on submissions and links management. I'm thinking of one off-hand who, in spite of countless inbound links, has had a permanent PR0 on their own site for over a year.
IMHO it's far better and safer for all of us to be educated about do's, dont's and how-to's than to have the door opened for promoters like that, as well as linking-scheme_domain_farmers to become involved and have others follow along to the same fate as others have and ultimately will.
At WebmasterWorld we're here to discuss doing business, not to actually to do business - there's a crucial difference between the two. We know it's watched over diligently, and is a core value and elementary standard - so we can relax and enjoy ourselves and learn together without anyone being in our faces trying to sell us a bill of goods.
I don't believe I've ever seen one decision made or one policy put in place that didn't ultimately serve the purpose of looking after what's in the best interests of the members, while at the same time demonstrating the commitment to maintaining the integrity of the board.
Beyond spam and management issues, there are the elements of comfort, sincerity and trust. IMHO those are foundational to building friendship, loyalty and commitment, as well as maintaining an environment of professionalism.
Ultimately, the responsibility for final decisions rests upon the man at the top. Over time it's clearly evident that the integrity and wisdom behind decisions that are made can be relied upon. And I personally believe that recognition of and appreciation for the adherance to sound principles and practices account for a good part of the astounding growth of WebmasterWorld.
That's what keeps me coming back.
