3 way link building

[Maslins]

Ok, so I've read plenty of stuff about reciprocal links not being worth much.

Got an e-mail today, offering (for free, hence why I didn't immediately delete it) 3 way link building (apparently all from finance related sites).

So basically I (website A) link to website B, who links to website C, who in turn links back to website A. Supposedly this is sufficient to "fool" the search engines and they all appear as simple one way links.

Any thoughts on whether it's a good idea? My logic is if it's free, then I haven't really got anything to lose except a bit of my time hence worth it...

[fisicx]

Google has been monitoring this for a long time now. It's not even worth the time answering the email.

Trish Jones found out the hard way back in 2007 that it's not a good strategy: http://www.trishjones.com/is-3-way-linking-acceptable-to-google/

[SEO Positive]

I would have to agree, this is not something that is worth doing. I know that people do try it, and in some cases (less competative terms) it does work, but if your in finance, or related industries, your not going to make it but getting these sorts of links.

One way links are best.

[Pellacraft]

I agree, riciprocal links can help to a certain extent with ranking although I tend to stay away from three way links. Google prefers one way links to other types of reciprocal links.

Good quality content which is keyword rich and good internal linking is a very good starting block. One way links from blogs, articles and word of mouth linking is the rich vien you want to tap into.

[Ali-v-8]

sorry disagree
So long as the website that you link to doesn't link back to you then the link is fine.
Even better is if you can get the term your linking back from in the metas i.e title's etc..

[fisicx]

Ali, did you read the Trisha jones post? She demostrated exactly why you shouldn't 3 way link. It is a deliberate attempt to manipulate ranking. It's not natural or organic and offers no value to your visitors. Google has been able to detect 3 and 4 way linking for a long time and will penalise those sites it uncovers.

[david64]

I agree with Ali. If you do loads of three way links, you will probably see good results. Personally, I would never put such links on my site though and this is also a tactic that is frowned upon by Google and white hat SEOs.

Also, some of the talk abound 2-way reciprocal links is miss-guided. Sure, its a pretty poor tactic, but I've seen many sites that are doing well from it. Some people seem to be under the impression that Google can tell the intent behind a link just as easily as a person - not true. How do you think Google sees a link between someone who works at the W3C and a link back to their site on their W3C profile? Or a number of two-way links between various open source related sites and Bob's PageRank 5 Linux Links Page?

Reciprocal links and three-way links work. Just make sure you know the implications before you do it.

[david64]

Ali, did you read the Trisha jones post? She demostrated exactly why you shouldn't 3 way link. It is a deliberate attempt to manipulate ranking. It's not natural or organic and offers no value to your visitors. Google has been able to detect 3 and 4 way linking for a long time and will penalise those sites it uncovers.

I'm sure there are nightmare reciprocal link stories, but there are lots of opposite stories. I know a site that is pos. 3 for a term that is probably as competitive as "van insurance" and their main source of links is link exchange. Site has been there for about 2 years. Granted that if someone can start getting in the fatties, they will be on their way out, but I can't see recips not working any time soon.

[Ali-v-8]

sorry but there is a lot of deliberate linking that could damage you in the serps but how would you create an algorithm that would be able to spot this with out penalising accidental occurances.
Sorry but i stand with non direct linking be it 3 way 4way or 5 way.

ever head of the 6 degrees of motion

[david64]

@Maslins - It is probably worth mentioning that a lot of these link exchange systems are used by SEOs to get links to their own site for free or to sell links on your site.

As fisicx points out Google are getting better at discounting / lowering the value of such links. Unless you can get a huge amount of reciprocal links to your site it might not do that much and do you really want 2,000 reciprocal links on your site? (http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/member.php?u=7996)

[Roj]

I believe its all about the quality of the links you have back to your site. If you have loads of links to your site from link farms, unrelated sites or from pages with hundreds on links on them Google will not take kindly to it.
I use one way, 2 way, and 3 way linking systems but I make sure all sites that are linking back are relevant, the pages are crawled by Google and the anchor text is varied but all in the same theme.
Along with blog posts, article submissions etc, this has gained me hundreds of top 10 rankings in the 3 major search engines for my sites and my clients sites.

[david64]

Quality counts to an extent, but when your competitors have 1000s of link text links (like in the insurance industry) it kind of goes out the window.

I believe its all about the quality of the links you have back to your site.

[Roj]

Quality counts to an extent, but when your competitors have 1000s of link text links (like in the insurance industry) it kind of goes out the window.

Its not all about the numbers.
I was doing some competitor research a few days ago and the site with the number one ranking for my keyword on Google had around 2,000 back links, the site with the number 2 ranking had over 12,000.
Some links are worth absolutely nothing.

[fisicx]

Quality linking is where I link to you with relevant supporting text and via roundabout way a link eventually comes back to me.

The OP was offered 3-way linking as a service, unless the links 'look' organic then a simple exchange program isn't going to work. This is point I'm trying to make, just adding links to a site (even if the target page is relevant) is about as useful as chocolate fireguard. The links have to form part of your content to have any value.

[david64]

Yes. This is true. However, when it comes to keywords like insurance, the people on page one are paying for links on PageRank 6 .edu pages and a lot of other links from high PageRank pages. You cannot compete against that with white hat.

Its not all about the numbers.
I was doing some competitor research a few days ago and the site with the number one ranking for my keyword on Google had around 2,000 back links, the site with the number 2 ranking had over 12,000.
Some links are worth absolutely nothing.

[david64]

I would agree that the links you describe in the first paragraph are the best links. However, if you can get enough gutter links they will pull their weight. Insurance sites are a good place to see this in action :p

Quality linking is where I link to you with relevant supporting text and via roundabout way a link eventually comes back to me.

The OP was offered 3-way linking as a service, unless the links 'look' organic then a simple exchange program isn't going to work. This is point I'm trying to make, just adding links to a site (even if the target page is relevant) is about as useful as chocolate fireguard. The links have to form part of your content to have any value.

[Roj]

Yes. This is true. However, when it comes to keywords like insurance, the people on page one are paying for links on PageRank 6 .edu pages and a lot of other links from high PageRank pages. You cannot compete against that with white hat.

Have you thought about targeting less competitive key phrases?
If you can get on the first page for lots of long tail keywords this is better than page ten for a highly competitive keyword.

[david64]

Yeh. I'd agree with that, to some extent. If I was a web designer, I'd certainly prefer to be on page one for something like "bespoke web design" than "web design". The problem is that some industries like insurance have really competitive longtails as well.

Have you thought about targeting less competitive key phrases?
If you can get on the first page for lots of long tail keywords this is better than page ten for a highly competitive keyword.

[fisicx]

However, if you can get enough gutter links they will pull their weight. Insurance sites are a good place to see this in action :p

But do they actually work? Just because they all do this doesn't actually mean the SE takes any notice. Couple this with the apparent dumping of spammy links by G and it's quite likely that the strategy will bite them on the bum.

[david64]

Yes. I've had experience of all the sides of SEO and I have a number of friends who are black hats. They use the worst links available - 20K+ gutter links from the most spammed forums, guestbooks and message boards. Position 2 result for "viagra" not long ago was spammed there. Google's system can't spot this so they manually remove them. Most black hat is now done using parasites (like Squid and Bebo) becaue those domains have trust or keyword match domains on longtails.

There are also a lot of sites that have ranked for ages that use un-natural links and high PR paid links. When your dealing with companies that are paying £5,000+ a month on links, its unlikely that you will be able to compete by leaving your link building to chance. These sort of companies will take any links they can get: natural links, sidebar links on blogs, 1,000s of splog posts, 3/4-way links because they know without them they can't compete with all their compets who are doing the same.

A while back some company offered SEOMoz $10,000,000 if they could get a site to the top for gambling phrases using WH, but they declined - one of the reasons being that they knew they can't compete with the sort of tactics being used by those sites.

I'd certainly agree that natural links on relevant sites that are not spammy or superfcial are the best links you can get, but they alone cannot compete with the amount of paid and unatural links that are proping up sites in some niches.

But do they actually work? Just because they all do this doesn't actually mean the SE takes any notice. Couple this with the apparent dumping of spammy links by G and it's quite likely that the strategy will bite them on the bum.

[IainW]

Spend your time getting a credible one way inbound link - priceless!!!

[SEO Positive]

Link building is that hardest part of SEO, especially is a competative field. However thats why SEO still exists, and will always exist.

[Pellacraft]

I agree with SEO Positive - it will always exist although it will probably chnage over time as the search engines are constantly changing and adding new features (Google Squared, WolframAlpha).

I think there will always be a requirement for good SEO however you do it.

[sirearl]

Spend your time getting a credible one way inbound link - priceless!!!

Rubbish a three way link from high profile site that is relevant to your business is far preferable to a one way link from Joe Bloggs of never never land.

Relevance and strength of the linking site is the key ,no matter how the link is obtained.

Earl

[bigGUK]

It all about quality and variety of links do the hard work get blogs published, write articles, get on directories etc

[Camille-I]

Sometimes it is a good way to make your website famouse or be visited by more people. Especially when that website you will cooperated with is hot. It really works. You can try.

[Ali-v-8]

i have some major rules when it comes to links.
1) Never off the same server.
2) relevant meta data
3) internal links first
4) never buy bulk links
5) avoid link companies
6) take your time.
7) following the above rules any link is a good link.