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LINK VALIDATION SPIDER
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 Reciprocal
Linking
A legitimate Promotional Practice?
First Published: April 2004
Last Update: April 2004
Author: Dirk Johnson
Preface: In a recent exchange of views in the LED Digest there was a discussion about reciprocal linking with people taking strong positions on both sides of the issue. The article that follows was in response to this discussion and is one of the best treatise on the importance and value of exchanging links I have
read. This is normally an emotionally laden subject, for some reason, and the author Dirk Johnson does a spectacular job of removing the emotion from the subject.
Editor In Chief: Bob Wakfer
Reciprocal Linking:
As expected, any talk of reciprocal linking brings forward a barrage of over-heated discussion. Since I started this thread, please allow me a chance to respond to much of what has been said, both here and elsewhere on the web. From a strategic perspective, I still do linking they same way I did it before Google even existed. I ask for links from relevantly-themed sites that publicly offer to exchange them, using the recommended method of submission, be it an online form or via email. And I make offers to exchange with other relevant sites that want to ask for links from the sites I manage. This simple and long-standing practice represents nothing more than an opportunity, plain and simple. For a marketing-oriented person, the goal here is to achieve a strong presence within a relevant realm of interest. The direct traffic from the links can be significant. But link saturation within in a large realm is something that is not easy to do, due to the data management challenges involved. Like most
other opportunities, it takes work, time, and commitment to yield big results. At it's core, linking is actually a branding function, not a search engine optimization function.
Google rewards reciprocal links:
Then Google came along and rewarded this practice, and in doing so, they became known as very useful, relevant search engine because of it. Who knew that this would happen? I sure didn't, but I'll certainly take it. Certainly, the Google-factor has expanded the number of linking opportunities considerably. So now, the most prepared, determined, and experienced at linking are able to increase their link popularity even further against those who choose not to do this. Again, I don't make the rules, but I will pursue these new linking opportunities, to the benefit of both parties in the exchange. Those who decide not to participate in these exchanges will not benefit from them. It's a simple, private choice that site owners make. Curiously, some of those who chose not to do it have decided to also rail against it. They want Google to see the "error" of their ways. This kind of talk is all over the web. They can talk all they want, but I seriously doubt that Google is going to take their advice fro
m the very people who want to turn the results in their favor.
Does Google punish reciprocal links?
The opponents often propose a very simplistic solution. They want "one way" links to count more than reciprocal links (I see virtually no current evidence of this, btw). We've already seen that this type of "one way" link popularity can easily be bought with paid placements, and that those links can even be disguised as "natural" content citations. The cost to keep these paid links in place is often significant, and it's ongoing. So if Google ever does punish reciprocated links, then we can watch the practice of using paid, one-way link placements to explode even more than it already has, with ever more sophistication in how they are presented, in order to appear "natural". Reciprocal linking is the way that undercapitalized sites can compete with well-funded rivals, since well-funded sites still prefer to buy their traffic outright, and they avoid having to link back to anyone else. Take away the benefit of reciprocal links, and those with the most money will finally crush almost everyone else, as t
hey do with pay-per-click now. And there are those who want the search engines to devise ways to reward sites that are more "worthy" than others. In their opinion, the most worthy sites are usually the sites that they manage. Good luck. Search engines are just glorious word crunching machines. Google recently confirmed this quite specifically and publicly when they refused to manually edit the results for certain religious search terms. There will always be ways to optimize a site for better indexing. There is a whole industry in place whose goal is to do just that. Whatever works best is exactly what will be done. The concept of the "honest" or "natural" website (whatever that is...the definition is self-derived in every single case) is quaint and it can still work in a narrow niche, but it is no longer a viable posture in a competitive environment. That's where proper content, page structure and solid link popularity are the critical factors to earning free search engine results. The judge
and jury here is a hide-bound machine. Search results do not come from a bunch of well-meaning, highly-educated, social-minded activists hired to do an emotional, subjective review of websites, and then picking the ones they "like", all while they sip away at overpriced lattes. That approach, again, quaint and human, is more commonly called paid research, and it's kind of expensive. The rest of us get what we get for free, from a silicon-loaded box. It's not perfect, and it's based on defined rules, so people with a financial interest in the outcome will always try to game it.
Linking isn't perfect.
I am not claiming that there are not problems with linking. There are spammers out there who scarf email addresses off a site and send link requests, even though the prospect site makes no offer to accept submissions, or they provide a submission form as an alternative to an email request. There are other annoyances. Not everyone who offers to reciprocate does, even if we ask politely. Not every site will send us the traffic volume that we send to them. Not every site will have a higher PR than ours. Not very site we link with will be a graphics and content tour-de-force. With linking, we have to give to get, a concept that makes some people uncomfortable. The answer to that is to just not do it. Find other ways to get links.
Most reciprocal links valid and legitimate
By and large, most link reciprocation takes pace between legitimate sites who follow proper protocol, and do it above board. There is nothing underhanded about it. Cheaters and hustlers lose their links. Irrelevant requests are usually just ignored. It is a private transaction between two willing site owners, to their mutual benefit. It's a well-established practice that pre-dates all search engines. It is a pervasive, beneficial, and most importantly - a free-choice practice. For these reasons, every search engine has a very difficult time punishing it. They have to deal with the web the way it is, and not they way they want it to be. Yet Google seems to have done well for itself by rewarding basic linking. The detractors can complain loudly, based on whatever annoys them about all of this, but, in the end, that doesn't really change things very much. Reciprocal linking takes place between two sites that mutually offer to do it. Either side can deny the trade, at their individual discretion. Each si
te has their own private reasons for doing it, and they would likely not do it if it did not provide a benefit to them. In practice, nobody else is involved with that decision, nor should they be. About the author:
Dirk Johnson is the owner of LinkStrategy.com.
You may find more information on link building strategies and read more of
Dirk's article there. To contact Dirk Johnson by email here.
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