Link exchange can also be looked down upon by google. You should do some more research on it.

Link exchanges will "leak" your rank to other sites. The rank that should have been yours will flow if you have high PR.

So much ill-informed rubbish from so many prople it's untrue.

Why do some of you bother reading if you are NOT prepared to actually LEARN.

two thirds of all that is posted in this thread (and elsewhere) is half understood (at best) regurgitated drivel!!

Now-a-days link exchage is a less popular way for seo,Link exchange gives theme based link.If that link will have high PR this will more valueable for a site and that helps to achieve good rank in google SERP.

Yes link exchange helps a little bit. But if your predominent links are coming from exchanges hurts your ranking....

Link exchanges don't really work these days , but 3 way link exchange is still fine !

Let’s cite some examples or scenarios here on why it doesn’t always work the way you want it.
1. You are only benefited on a short term. Why, your link is being removed on their site after doing the link exchange. After few days or weeks, your site where you are supposed to get link into was removed.
2. In relation to item number 1, your link becomes no follow after few days or weeks. Avoiding that google PR juice.
3. If it pass for few weeks or months of exchanging links, check for few more months and it will be gone.
4. The domain you just exchange expired.
5. The site your just exchanged has been suspended or similar cases like parked.
6. Sites you have exchanged with becomes a redirect. Meaning having new url that is not directly pointing to your sites either using javascript or other scripts.
7. The domain is banned from search engine.

I think link exchange is the easiest way to improve your website link popularity, and by doing so, to achieve better search engine positioning and increase your website traffic, and if done properly it will be a very effective and inexpensive approach to gain more popularity and prosperity on the web.

Originally Posted by John Abraham

Yes Link Exchange is useful and works only if you exchange links with relevant websites with High Page Rank. Otherwise nowadays link exchanges are not in much demand.

--------------------------------------------
now-a-days link exchanges is not demanded.

getting one way links from a related site is the best... link exchange is a very tiring process... and Google has already reduced its importance...

a mistake that people still sometimes make: buying a random software package that they think will get them a gold mine of links, especially by bulk emailing reputable sites. At this point, most site owners are savvy enough to realize that emails with link exchange requests are rarely hand-crafted with love. Instead of exchanging links, lots of site owners forward the unsolicited emails to Google

Originally Posted by Jenie0109

Link exchange has less value nowadays.

It is a known fact that reciprocal links are NOT as effective as they used to be. This does not mean abandon ship as many other webmasters have done. This just means they do not play the same role as they used to. They do however have the long term effect and can still bring you a bunch of targeted traffic at no cost to you.

link exchange is the best way to get ranked in google. bt this doesnt work out well for ranking in yahoo.

I don’t mean to self promote but I think I can answer this question. Yes linking does still have value. We see it with our campaigns and services that it does work. What we see, as some of you have mentioned, link relevancy is very important and being in a “good neighborhood” is as well. So any page with PR will do, probably the higher the better. With patience we get great results.

AT Google they know what they are doing, so no matter what link exchange program you will join, they will find out and penalize your site. I have tried lots of this kind of services, and none of them has worked. Even the Jonathan Leger "3 way link exchange" is the same, I tried it and as a result it buried the sites I was testing at the 200th position in Google, the site tested were in the third page before they participated to the exchange, so don't be fooled just don't do it!

Originally Posted by AutoBacklinks

So any page with PR will do

I doubt this approach is legitimate.

Other than that, I think people had better make a distinction between things like spamming/link exchange schemes and reciprocal linking by webmasters who genuinely find the other person's pages valuable/interesting/helpful for visitors.

When it comes to link building strategies to rank high in SE you have to consider a few basic points:
1. AT Google they know what they are doing, so no matter what link exchange program you will join, they will find out and penalize your site. I have tried lots of this kind of services, and none of them has worked. Even the Jonathan Leger "3 way link exchange" is the same, I tried it and as a result it buried the sites I was testing at the 200th position in Google, the site tested were in the third page before they participated to the exchange, so don't be fooled just don't do it!
2. Most of the services of this kind, say that if you control link placement speed you will be fine. Not true, even if you place the links gradually, Google will find your links are not natural anyway. I don't recommend you any service like this, there are no links placed gradually and something natural for the search engines. Google now day, even has people working on quality control, checking websites to help the quality of the search results so you will not get away with it.
3. A link from a relevant website is excellent, a link from a quality site of other niches is not going to hert but doesn't do any good, even links in other languages can have just little benefit. I can assure you this aspect because I make websites in Italian all the time, and I tried to link them with English sites, but different languages have shown me scarce results.

Originally Posted by Candise

they will find out and penalize your site.

I guess there's no penalty for reciprocal linking, it's rather that things that look like they are manipulating the index get discounted.

Link Exchange also means reciprocal linking. Search Engines won’t banned you if there are few bad neighborhood( porn, gambling, and pharmacy sites) linking to you.

But if you reciprocate to them then theres your problem will come. So the number one rule in link exchange is “Don’t link to bad neighborhood”.

Originally Posted by beowulf7

Link Exchange also means reciprocal linking. Search Engines won’t banned you if there are few bad neighborhood( porn, gambling, and pharmacy sites) linking to you.

But if you reciprocate to them then theres your problem will come. So the number one rule in link exchange is “Don’t link to bad neighborhood”.

"Bad neighbourhoods" are NOT porn, gambling or pharmacy websites, though of course sites in these marketplaces may well become "bad neighbourhoods" depending on if they are employing any tricks to fool SEs.