Hello All,

I hope you have already knew that reciprocal link building is not as vital today as it was in past. As I mentioned many times in forum that reciprocal link building is not a ethical way now a days to gain link popularity for your site. When we first started to exchange link then it was like this : A web master visit other site and ask that webmaster to place his link and vice versa. 2 years back also this method was ok. But now how we are exploiting this system ? We are randomly exchanging link with sites similar or dissimilar to us. For this reason search engine spiders already know the process we are practicing is un natural, so they are not paying much attention to this link building process. A site having a link directory means either it is taking part in reciprocal or one way (or so called 3 way) link building process.

SO every thing is artificial now. So how to overcome this situation ? Here’s my answer :

Convert your link page to content page i.e. where some useful information about your site will be there. Then place other sites link information (link partner site’s info) in a paragraph like …

If you are placing a site related to “watch” then the code you should use

Looking to buy <a href="http://www.shopwebsitename.com">Rolex watch</a> ? I
have found the site <a href="http://www.sitename.com">Sitename.com</a> is really
good.

It should be some thing like this. Place 4-5 lines about your site or your knowledge (with out placing any hyperlink), then again place a link partners link information. Same thing for other sites too. By this way your link page will completely look natural. If this process maintained by your link partners then both of you will be natural in the eyes of search spiders.

Don’t keep more than 20 outgoing links on one page. I know some people put many links on one page because they fear if they create new page then that new page will not get PR and they’ll not gain link partners because they are unable to provide good PR to their link partners. I’m again saying Page Rank doesn’t matter, though it gives some good visualization for visitors for now it hardly mean any thing. Just check if all your pages of your sites are cached by search engines, that’s all.

I know creating unique contents for each category of your existing link directory is tough but if you want to look it natural then it has to be done. If you find it hard to get one way link for your site then it’s the best way. Before exchanging link check that site’s page structure (if using frame, how many outgoing links more than 100 is useless, cached or not, is it integral part of that website ?) I mean some webmasters have bad habit of making fool other site owners. They just make a page which they by any means manage to get indexed and add lots of site’s link information. Those are not useful because until and unless a visitor can see the page it’s useless having a link back from such sites. Every time I ask for creating page for your visitors not only for your own benefit. If you are able to create a “link page” (the kind I was talking about) which you think will benefit your visitors then search spiders also find it visitors friendly. If visitors like your site or link page then they may refer your site to some body else or may give you a free one way link (maybe!).

I am expecting another hot debate

Reciprocal link building is becoming less and less important in the world of optimisation. Yes there are some sites that have large quantities of visitors that would be interested in linking to your site for the benefit of the user, though its usually the case that links are not being used correctly and are not monitored enough by the sites webmaster.
Also there is this big idea that if you share links to sites and they link back then this will drastically improve your site ranking. By linking back there is little or no improvement due to Googlebot entering your site and leaving again back on the link it came in on (or something similar).
Oneway links are the most important links which are gained by respect due to great content and relivance to other sites. These links will interest the users which is what websites need.
Users that actually want the product.

Finished my rant now

very useful advice. Content really worth more than a web page crowded with links.

Originally Posted by glyn

Reciprocal link building is becoming less and less important in the world of optimisation. Yes there are some sites that have large quantities of visitors that would be interested in linking to your site for the benefit of the user, though its usually the case that links are not being used correctly and are not monitored enough by the sites webmaster.
Also there is this big idea that if you share links to sites and they link back then this will drastically improve your site ranking. By linking back there is little or no improvement due to Googlebot entering your site and leaving again back on the link it came in on (or something similar).
Oneway links are the most important links which are gained by respect due to great content and relivance to other sites. These links will interest the users which is what websites need.
Users that actually want the product.

Finished my rant now

I'm fully agree with this.

I am expecting another hot debate

Don't think your going to get much of a hot debate, your ideas are sound it makes a lot of sense. Does your link building service follow this concept?

Nixies

Does your link building service follow this concept?

Not so far, but hopefully we'll offer this service in very near future. Already started to build sites for this purpose only.