Hi.............

My "reading" of link exchanges with sites (having some synergy with your own) is that the value of link exchanges may be limited, but still have some merit.

I get a lot of requests for links exchanges - and have noticed a distinct trend:

(1) many request links to their sites, but the link they offer to post in return post is on a "directory" (that isn't directly accessible from their home page)

(2) Many requests also offer to post to a directory (that IS accessible from their home page) but has a completely different URL than their "base" web site.

(3) many requests are totally irrelevant - product/service wise to my site's visitors

I thought that for an exchange to have any merit at all (generally speaking):

(1) it should be directly relevant to your own site visitors

ie: my site is about cake/candy making - a link to someone selling shoes is a total waste, and may in fact be worse than that (?)

(2) links to directories are generally a waste of time - most of ther ones I look at seem to exist just to "collect" links, have bad layouts, not logically put together, and I can't imagine myself (or anyone else) going there to find something - doesn't 90% of the world use MAN, google, yahoo (?)

(3) links should be directly accessible form the "swapees" [(if that's a word :- )] home page, and the actual url of the "swapees" link page should reflect the same web site - not something entirely different

ie: if I were to swap links with a site called: www.cakefrosting.com then their links page should be (something) like this: www.cakefrosting/links.htm

However, there seems to be such a trend (in a different direction, as described above) maybe I'm missing something?

Am I just out of date??

Any comments are really appreciated!

Thank you.

No you right i only exchange links with the same area of content as mine, and i also check for a few other things, like how many links they have on one page if over 30 i will not exchange, also that they use no tricks on their site to get hits and that it looks good and sells or offer good products/content.

The way i look at it is exchanging does help with your PR but it also should reflex on how you do business and if you send a visitor to a bad site i bet their would not visit yours again either and i think the likes of google and so on takes a strong point on this to.

Regards

I think trading links works well if done right. I always make sure the website is somewhat related to mine and has more and the same number of members/posts.

You're pretty much right, except for two or three things. And you've got a strong point about people just don't use directories.

But about the link being directly accessible from the home page, that's not going to happen much. Half the sites on the web still use a splash page with simplified navigation. Even if, like you say, it's on www.some.com/links.html, that doesn't necessarily mean there's a link to that document from the home page.

It can be very valuable to have links to and from sites that aren't clones of yours. For example, I have a link to FireFox and Open Office, even though my site has nothing to do with open source or anything like it. They're valuable tools that I don't offer. Your links should complement your site, not mimic it.

Here's my link exchange policy:

I link out to sites that I feel are relevant.
Site owners may link my site if they feel it is relevant.
But if the twain shall meet on the two previous ideas, it's strictly coincidental.

In other words, I give out links when it's worth giving them out, and I don't exchange for the pure sake of exchange. Even with SEs removed from the equation, I still wouldn't exchange for the pure sake of exchange, because the odds are that either I'm going to be sending the same number or greater the number of visitors that I'll get from the reciprocal link. Why give away net traffic like that if you don't believe in the link?

Link exchange is effective for your link popularity. I choose link exchange partner that is related to our site and we will check if our site is deleted. Then that is the time the link exchange site to be deleted also.