Reciprocal Links - Exchange Links But Keep It Real!

Reciprocal links (commonly misspelled as: reciprical links)are also known as "link swaps", "link exchanges" and "link partners". They are a mutual exchange of links between two websites in an effort to increase traffic and establish credibility with the search engines.

There are differing schools of thought on reciprocal linking today. Some believe reciprocal linking has no effect at all on the position of a website in the search results on Google. Some feel that reciprocal inbound links work just like any other inbound links. Others conclude that there is a threshold value. For example, you shouldn’t have more than 33% reciprocal inbound links.

When ranking sites, most – if not all – major search engines still take into account the number and quality of the sites that link or refer to your site.

Therefore, getting good, quality backlinks is a major part of any web marketing strategy.

Be vigilant with which sites you exchange links. Many unrelated sites may contact you to exchange links. There is no benefit to exchange links with sites that are totally unrelated to real estate. For example, you may receive numerous requests from gambling and pharmaceutical sites...not related to real estate in any way therefore, not good, quality or complimentary links.

Value Exchange available from SiteBuildIt! is an excellent exchange program where website owners actively exchange links with each other.
As Ken Evoy says: "The World's ONLY True-Blue, Real Link Exchanger that WORKS!" You can find high-value, similarly themed sites, and then exchange links to TRULY increase your link popularity, in a way that the search engines love.

Be sure to check out the directories and various reciprocal links programs available from our site's real estate resources.

Google Google's Webmaster Guidelines warns site owners against Link Schemes that might impact the ratings of their web sites negatively.

Yahoo, in their Search Content Quality Guidelines, provides examples of content that they don’t want included in their search engine, such as: Sites cross-linked excessively with other sites to inflate a site’s apparent popularity.

Windows Live Help, in their page on Guidelines for successful indexing, include amongst their list of "techniques that might prevent your website from appearing in Live Search results," the following: Using techniques, such as link farms, to artificially increase the number of links to your webpage.

The Bottom Line:- When considering reciprocal links with other sites ask yourself:
Would I link to them if they had not asked me to? Would they link to me if I did not ask them to? If the answers are NO, then don't link exchange with that site.

One of the best ways to get sites linking and referring to your site is to write articles. Backlinks from sites publishing your articles are usually one-way links and are ideal!