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View Full Version : Recip Links - good or bad to SEO?



lemon
12-28-2004, 12:44 AM
Chris

I see you don't do any reciprocal linking on your network of sites. Are reciprocal links bad for SEO?

If site A sub-page links to site B sub-page and vice versa .. will Google discount the link?

Do you think Google will add a penalty if too many reciprocal links are detected on a particular site?

:confused: :o

Will.Spencer
01-15-2005, 11:43 PM
I would love to see some hard data on this topic. :(

James
01-16-2005, 02:06 AM
I don't think that there could be any hard data; just theories with things that support them very very slightly.

Cutter
01-16-2005, 03:06 PM
I know someone with an adult site which gets tons of SE traffic (he's in google's top ten for xxx.) He links to people's sites and they link back with the keywords he wants. Obviously the reciprical links are not hurting him.

I'm more concerned about the anchor text than if the link is reciprical or not.

ozgression
01-16-2005, 03:16 PM
I'm more concerned about the anchor text than if the link is reciprical or not.

Yes, I believe that is the more important factor too.

chromate
01-16-2005, 03:32 PM
I don't think there's anything wrong with link exchanges. However, I do know that a lot of link exchanges people do are bad for PR. It's easy to end up losing PR unless you're careful.

What I'm interested in now is if the quantity of links is important. I used to believe it was only the amount of PR the link provided that was important. However, now I'm wondering if 100 low PR links are better than one or two high PR links (assuming the anchor text is the same).

Blue Cat Buxton
01-16-2005, 04:00 PM
I think there is another factor, that of where the link is coming from

- a low pr link from an on topic site is better than a low pr link from any old site
- a low pr link from an on topic site is possibly better in improving ranking than a higher pr link from another site (but the higher pr link should still pass more pr assuming similar number of links out from the pages etc)

So anchor text, PR from the linking page and site topic all have factors.

There is also the "hope value" of a site. If a site looks like it is goign to increase PR and traffic over time it may be worth a link exchange so that you benefit in a few months time

chromate
01-16-2005, 04:07 PM
Has anyone actually worked out if Local Rank is being used or not? Are we still all not certain?

davesplace1
01-16-2005, 05:50 PM
Sometimes trading links can be very good, one site I traded with sends me 200 visitors a day. Now if I could just find a few more trades like that :).

Chris
01-16-2005, 06:56 PM
I don't think they're hurt you, I don't think any link will hurt you, but a reciprocal may not help as much as you like.

Though if it is an ontopic site, and you get good anchor text, I say link away.

For instance my survival site has a link exchange with icebane's outdoors site. When we instituted the exchange I believe I had slightly more PR than him, but I immediately went up to #1 on survival (having been #1 on wilderness survival for years, the top spot on survival eluded me). And there is some serious competition on that word. He also went up in the rankings for his keywords. So we found this to be very beneficial.

By and large though I do not do alot of link exchanges, not because I don't think they work, but rather I'm picky.

Cutter
01-16-2005, 07:21 PM
When I look for links I try to focus on:

-Relevancy of the site
-Traffic quality of the site
-Is this site "spam"? (If they install toolbars, etc, that is a *huge* no right there)
-Placement of link (frontpage vs a links page with 100 links on it)

If a page has 0 PR then I look into things, otherwise I'm not too concerned about PR. Also I'm happy to take incoming links from sites using php or asp for the link, but I won't exchange links with them.

lemon
01-19-2005, 02:57 AM
For instance my survival site has a link exchange with icebane's outdoors site. When we instituted the exchange I believe I had slightly more PR than him, but I immediately went up to #1 on survival (having been #1 on wilderness survival for years, the top spot on survival eluded me). And there is some serious competition on that word. He also went up in the rankings for his keywords. So we found this to be very beneficial.

Chris, was the exchange site-wide or just home-page or just links page?

Chris
01-19-2005, 08:54 AM
Site wide.