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Are Link Exchanges Still Helpful For Search Engine Optmization?

I’ve read about link exchanges a lot recently. I’ve seen a lot of people who say that their predictions that link exchanges would stop working saying that they were right, and that they don’t work, and that they in fact hurt your website.

Let’s stop right there. Proclaiming the death of link exchanges is still a little premature.

I’m going to clear up a few things. All link exchanges are not dead. Link exchanges when implemented properly can still be very beneficial to your search engine rankings and can even drive traffic to your site.

Before I tell you how to do it right, let me tell you how to do it wrong. Any link exchanges promising hundreds or links immediately upon joining should be avoided unless the only search engine you care about is MSN (and even that may be ending soon). Exchanging links with every site under the sun is also bad. Using a link exchange as the only way you get links will also not be a path you want to wander down.

Okay, so now that I’ve taken all the fun out of it, let me tell you how to do it so that you avoid any search engine penalties and actually see your search engine rankings improve from link exchanges. First, find service or software that will allow you to manually seek and choose your partners. Second, once you’re in, take your time. A few links here and a few there. Third, be consistent about it. Exchanging links should be done every week, or at the very least every month. You want the number of links to increase over time. Fourth, only trade links with sites that are related to yours. Also, make sure you visit the site you’re linking to, you don’t want to be linking to sites that are junk unless you want to be thought of as a junky site as well. Fifth, keep the number of links to under 10% of the total number of links pointing to your site. That means you’re going to need other linking strategies, but that’s okay, there are several available and you should be using them all.

So now you’re armed with the knowledge of how to do link exchanges and stay in the good graces of the search engines. So the next time somebody starts proclaiming from their high horse about how link exchanges got them banned or hurt their rankings, just keep in mind that they were likely trying to use shortcuts to get artificially high search engines.

There are in fact a lot of good reasons for websites to be linked to one another, and the search engines know that. The thing the search engines don’t want to see is a website that will only link to a site that will link to it. Make sure you have one way links pointing both into and out of your website in addition to your link exchanges and you’ll be in good shape.

Gary Ruplinger is a search engine optimization expert who has written a report to helping website owners get their sites to the top of search engines with a detailed step by step plan called the Ultimate Traffic Blueprint – a completely free link building report. He’s on a mission to stop the misinformation campaigns and myths that people have about SEO. He also offers premium content site building services for those who are looking for quality, not quantity in their websites. His site is UltimateTrafficBlueprint.com

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Are Link Exchanges Still Helpful For Search Engine Optmization?

I’ve read about link exchanges a lot recently. I’ve seen a lot of people who say that their predictions that link exchanges would stop working saying that they were right, and that they don’t work, and that they in fact hurt your website.

Let’s stop right there. Proclaiming the death of link exchanges is still a little premature.

I’m going to clear up a few things. All link exchanges are not dead. Link exchanges when implemented properly can still be very beneficial to your search engine rankings and can even drive traffic to your site.

Before I tell you how to do it right, let me tell you how to do it wrong. Any link exchanges promising hundreds or links immediately upon joining should be avoided unless the only search engine you care about is MSN (and even that may be ending soon). Exchanging links with every site under the sun is also bad. Using a link exchange as the only way you get links will also not be a path you want to wander down.

Okay, so now that I’ve taken all the fun out of it, let me tell you how to do it so that you avoid any search engine penalties and actually see your search engine rankings improve from link exchanges. First, find service or software that will allow you to manually seek and choose your partners. Second, once you’re in, take your time. A few links here and a few there. Third, be consistent about it. Exchanging links should be done every week, or at the very least every month. You want the number of links to increase over time. Fourth, only trade links with sites that are related to yours. Also, make sure you visit the site you’re linking to, you don’t want to be linking to sites that are junk unless you want to be thought of as a junky site as well. Fifth, keep the number of links to under 10% of the total number of links pointing to your site. That means you’re going to need other linking strategies, but that’s okay, there are several available and you should be using them all.

So now you’re armed with the knowledge of how to do link exchanges and stay in the good graces of the search engines. So the next time somebody starts proclaiming from their high horse about how link exchanges got them banned or hurt their rankings, just keep in mind that they were likely trying to use shortcuts to get artificially high search engines.

There are in fact a lot of good reasons for websites to be linked to one another, and the search engines know that. The thing the search engines don’t want to see is a website that will only link to a site that will link to it. Make sure you have one way links pointing both into and out of your website in addition to your link exchanges and you’ll be in good shape.

Gary Ruplinger is a search engine optimization expert who has written a report to helping website owners get their sites to the top of search engines with a detailed step by step plan called the Ultimate Traffic Blueprint – a completely free link building report. He’s on a mission to stop the misinformation campaigns and myths that people have about SEO. He also offers premium content site building services for those who are looking for quality, not quantity in their websites. His site is UltimateTrafficBlueprint.com

Related Articles
  • Link Popularity Building Strategies and Tips
  • Link Popularity Link building has always been a hot topic. In the beginning of the web hyperlinks were virtually the only way to get visitors to a site, because search engines

  • Tips to Link Popularity
  • To check the popularity or the importance of a web site, Google's patented PageRank is another method where if more pages link to a given page, then more important the

  • Build Better Link Popularity with Syndicated Articles
  • There are many schools of thought on how to build strong backlinks to a Web site. Some webmasters build reciprocal links, while others register their site in many directories. Still

  • Building Link Popularity with Topical Articles
  • One of the important factors in ranking high in search engine results is link popularity. It is not enough to just have the best website in the world--other sites have

  • Link Building And Its Use In SEO
  • Link building has long been heralded as one of the most important aspects of any effective SEO campaign, and with good reason. The major search engines certainly give some weight

No comments yet. Be the first.

Leave a reply