Hi,

When I had my e-commerce site redesigned I chose not to have a links page on it because I was led to believe that reciprocal links have the effect of cancelling one another out.

It was suggested that I needed to focus more on gaining high quality, non-reciprocal inbound links from sites with similar and relevant content.

However, most of the sites I request links from are asking for a reciprocal link and I can understand why.

Should I reconsider adding a links page to my website?

Is it worth adding a links page if quality sites will only link to me in exchange for a reciprocal link?

Thanks

James

There's nothing inherently wrong with trading links with another site, but I wouldn't add the links page. Without more details about the sites in question I couldn't say for certain, but I'm guessing those links aren't as high quality as you might think.

Try to think of links without thinking about search engines. If that other site linked to you do you think a person visiting that other site would see the link to your site and want to click it?

If all the sites in question are linking to each other through link pages that link to any site that links back to them it's not really useful to visitors. It's just a random collection of links. Search engines will likely see it the same way. It's easy enough for them to realize those links exist only to manipulate rankings. They aren't honest votes or recommendations for the sites so search engines would prefer not to count them.

Think about the links you're trying to get and ask yourself how valuable they really are. Some might be great links, but I would imagine most aren't. For the the few links that are genuinely good ones you can find other ways to reciprocate the link on both ends than using a free for all links page.

I don't know if you want to share the sites in question here. If you'd rather not feel free to PM me with a link to your site and some of the sites you're trying to get links from. I'll be happy to take a look and let you know what I think.

I think reciprocal links still have some value if its done at a minimal number and with a relevant site, try 3 way. Though one way links are much better but they are harder to find.

A links page could help to get some link exchanges going.