Link exchanges

[realmaverick]

Hey guys, I'm helping a friend of mine with his website. I'm currently looking for relevant link partners for his website.

His website is www.electrician4hire.com and is based in Essex.

I'm looking for links with either tradesman or other websites offering services in Essex or anything to do with Essex.

Please drop me a PM if you're interested.

I don't suppose any of you run mobile phone related websites?

[1tondollar]

recommend link2me link website straightforward mostly automated emails you results
good luck..

[ScottB]

Google have uploaded a new section to their webmaster guidelines advising against the use of link exchanges: google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356&query=link+exchange&topic=&type

It's more geared towards link whoring (basically exchanging links with anyone and everyone without any thought to relevance to your site's users), but still worth keeping in mind as it will essentially affect all link schemes. That said, it has been the case for a while that link exchanges, etc aren't entirely effective for link building.

Scott

[boho]

Scott
Sorry but I disagree with you there, whilst I know the SEO of this forum have many and varied opinions on the value of link swapping there is still value in it. Yes it needs to be relevant and related to your business, and should be a good link neighbourhood (i.e those you link to don't link to any cr@p either), but at the end of the day SEO value or not aside customers do use and follow links and if you link to good sites you'll get good customers as a result of those links. 25% of my business comes from referrals and links, customers like the site they're on and look to see if the business owner has links to like minded sites.

Links should just as much be viewed as something beneficial to the end-user, and if you bear that in mind and link to things of relevance to your site and of a quality that as a customer you'd be interested in then the benefit overall is positive.

[sabian1982]

What is the purpose of your link building realmaverick?

Is it to improve the search engine visability of the site? to attract traffic and visitors for the sites you swap links with?

Google is quite clever, although as mentioned related backlinks from site A to site B and back again are good the best method is to either build just one way backlinks links or to create a 3, 4 or 5 way link exchange.

ie A > B, B > C, C > D, D > E, E > A

This combined with one way links is a much stronger method of link building and help both your SERPs and your PR.

Never forget though that quality is just as important; google (in recent updates) has devalued various website (specifically directories) that don't relate or contain poor content!

[AndyBlack]

My current view is splitting your submissions between recipricol, and one-way, ie - link directories. Most links offer some value to some degree, some more than others. Relevent one way is best, from a high PR page. I would concentrate more on keeping as relevent as possible, and always submit to the most relevent category within any directory. Also, one of the most important points I will make with regards to link building is to vary your anchor text. For example.... Exchange say 10 - 15 with "Promotional Gifts UK"... and then another 10 - 15 with "Custom Promotional Gifts"... and keep varying the text so that it looks more organic than submitting 100's of links all with the same anchor text. You will get penalised for it. Always include you main keywords in there though, in my example above it was 'promotiona gifts'.

Remember, limit your link submissions per week. Set yourself a reasonable amount and stick with it. Google will be taking note of how consistant your link popularity is growing. If you get 250 one month, and then next it's 10, then Google will know that it isn't organic! Few but regular is far better. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day!

Good luck!

Andy

[sabian1982]

Better to be slow than sandboxed ;)

[natkits]

Better to be slow than sandboxed ;)

Never a truer Google post made. Slowly does it; Google 'knows' when linkwhoring is being attempted, don't do it.

Back to the OP, reciprocal linking is certainly not as strong a Google factor as it used to be, though it does still matter. Make sure any reciprocal links are relevant to your website. Even if Google doesn't yet penalise you for irrelevant reciprocal links, they may well do in the future.

Alec

[1tondollar]

Very Good points from everybody here will tread carefully with link2me
but still use as seeing lots results in google search for spectralorbs
from other sites due to link2me major overhaul of my linkpage tonight nice to be reminded thanks guys

[RedEvo]

Google have uploaded a new section to their webmaster guidelines advising against the use of link exchanges: google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356&query=link+exchange&topic=&type

It's more geared towards link whoring (basically exchanging links with anyone and everyone without any thought to relevance to your site's users), but still worth keeping in mind as it will essentially affect all link schemes. That said, it has been the case for a while that link exchanges, etc aren't entirely effective for link building.

Scott

Thanks for this Scott. Much appreciated.

d

[ken_uk]

Im curious as to the link between a electrician hire site and mobile phone websites?

[sirearl]

came across this rather novel method for a links page.;)

http://www.dollshouse-plans.co.uk/links.htm

Earl

[1tondollar]

My current view is splitting your submissions between recipricol, and one-way, ie - link directories. Most links offer some value to some degree, some more than others. Relevent one way is best, from a high PR page. I would concentrate more on keeping as relevent as possible, and always submit to the most relevent category within any directory. Also, one of the most important points I will make with regards to link building is to vary your anchor text. For example.... Exchange say 10 - 15 with "Promotional Gifts UK"... and then another 10 - 15 with "Custom Promotional Gifts"... and keep varying the text so that it looks more organic than submitting 100's of links all with the same anchor text. You will get penalised for it. Always include you main keywords in there though, in my example above it was 'promotiona gifts'.

Remember, limit your link submissions per week. Set yourself a reasonable amount and stick with it. Google will be taking note of how consistant your link popularity is growing. If you get 250 one month, and then next it's 10, then Google will know that it isn't organic! Few but regular is far better. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day!

Good luck!

Andy
Nice explanation well noted Thanks:)