Reciprocal Linking

Is reciprocal linking still beneficial? I think this question is being asked by many webmasters who are trying to acheive high search engine rankings. There are many different opinions on that topic, but I strongly believe that reciprocal links can still help you with your search marketing efforts.

There are certain factors and rules that webmasters should apply in their link building campaign such as relevancy, popularity, and saturation of the potential link partner in search engines.

Relevancy factor plays probably the most important role in reciprocal linking campaign. Webmaster should always determine if the site he wants to request link exchange from has content that is similar to their's or in other words relevant. Relevant reciprocal links have more value and are better quality. This means that search engines weight higher those type of links. For example, if your website has content about search engine optimization tips, you should look for link partners that have content or topic around that niche. I would look for reciprocal links from websites that sell seo tools, or provide internet marketing information. You should also keep in mind that relevant link gives you more long term benefits than a none-relevant high PR link.

Popularity of the site is also important factor in reciprocal link exchanges. If the site receives lots of visitors, you could gain traffic to your site instantly and receive boost in your rankings. If the site that you are exchanging link with is aged and has been online for several years it will also be highly beneficial towards your search engine rankings. Remember that aged link from a popular high traffic site can dramatically increase your rankings.

Also you should take for consideration the saturation of your future reciprocal link partner's pages in search results. Why is this important? Well, I know that many of you don't even think about it, but I usually check how many pages a publisher has indexed in search engines before I request reciprocal link partnership. This way I secure my link on a website that actually provides usefull content. I won't exchange links with a website unless the publisher has at least 50 pages indexed in all major search engines.

I strongly believe that reciprocal links still deliver boost in search engine rankings if the link partner is scanned for all the above factors, which will provide you with quality link that search engines notice. Be carefull with reciprocal link exchanges and always examine what other websites are being linked from the page where your link is at. Check for banned websites or illegal tactics on their pages. If you take all the above rules for consideration each time you exchange reciprocal link with another webmaster, you will receive the most out of it.