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Thread: Recip Links - good or bad to SEO?

  1. #1
    Registered lemon's Avatar
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    Thumbs up Recip Links - good or bad to SEO?

    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?


  2. #2
    Junior Registered
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    I would love to see some hard data on this topic.

  3. #3
    I'm the oogie boogie man! James's Avatar
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    I don't think that there could be any hard data; just theories with things that support them very very slightly.

  4. #4
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    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.
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  5. #5
    Trench Warfare
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cutter
    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.

  6. #6
    Senior Member chromate's Avatar
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    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).

  7. #7
    Not that blue at all Blue Cat Buxton's Avatar
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    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

  8. #8
    Senior Member chromate's Avatar
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    Has anyone actually worked out if Local Rank is being used or not? Are we still all not certain?

  9. #9
    Registered User davesplace1's Avatar
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    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 .

  10. #10
    Administrator Chris's Avatar
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    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.
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  11. #11
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    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.
    Make more money - Read my Web Publishing Blog

  12. #12
    Registered lemon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris
    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?

  13. #13
    Administrator Chris's Avatar
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    Site wide.
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