Why Link Exchanges are a Bad Idea

by Scott Allen

Surprisingly, there still seem to be some huge misconceptions among some website owners that link exchange programs are actually a GOOD idea. What defines a “link exchange”? For the purpose of this post, I’ll define it as any method of exchanging links on a large scale (usually automated) specifically for the purpose of improving search engine rankings, not user-experience. This is an old technique that might have worked in 2000, but it doesn’t work today. Search engines are wise to link exchange programs, automated link programs, link farms, FFA’s, and the like. The search engines have entire teams dedicated to spam-detection. The real estate industry was dealt a hard blow by Google for using these methods. Link exchanges are undeniably a bad idea for SEO. So, why in 2007 are sites still setting up spammy link exchanges?

Typically a link exchange involves either manually or automatically setting up a page or directory of links to other sites and partners that link back to your site. These types of spam-filled pages or directories often have no value to the visitor. (Link exchanges are not to be confused with good natural reciprocal linking, which involves two sites that link to each other contextually on different content pages.)

Avoid Link Schemes

Quick and lazy schemes are increasingly worth less and less, so avoid them…at all costs. Here’s a good rule of thumb for SEO, if it’s automated, super-easy, or super-fast, avoid it. Period.

One of the main reasons to avoid link exchanges, is that Google considers it a manipulative technique, and has been known to remove sites for trying to artificially inflate their rankings. Spammy link exchange tactics are against Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

Learn from the Real Estate Industry

You may want to read a blog post from SEOmoz about how Google nailed many real estate industry sites for using excessive link exchange tactics. Many of these sites completely disappeared from search engines and took some hard financial losses. Not something to emulate.

For those of you who still think Link Exchanges are a good idea, read this blog post from SEO Book: Matt Cutts Announces Death of Cheesy Link Exchange Networks. Here’s a quote:

The sites that fit “no pages in Bigdaddy” criteria were sites where our algorithms had very low trust in the inlinks or the outlinks of that site. Examples that might cause that include excessive reciprocal links, linking to spammy neighborhoods on the web, or link buying/selling. The Bigdaddy update is independent of our supplemental results, so when Bigdaddy didn’t select pages from a site, that would expose more supplemental results for a site.

According to Matt Cutts, from Google:

Tactics like lavishing on reciprocal links; or reciprocal links don’t work as well — let’s try this fad called triangular linking; or let’s try buying links; all these sorts of things. These are not the sort of links that are best for your site. They’re certainly more high risk.

Should I Link Out at All?

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with naturally linking out to sites that will be of value to your visitors. There’s also nothing wrong with having a short page of links to other valuable resources that are applicable to your site visitors, that you want to give credit to, or that you believe in, etc. (It would probably be best to not call it “Links” if your purpose is SEO.) You may be interested in a previous post I wrote about how linking out can help your SEO efforts. If the other sites link back to you, it’s important to understand that reciprocal links between two sites are not counted as highly as one-way links in most cases. (Especially if both sites are linking to the same page on the other site that the link came from.) Not to say that two quality sites with similar themes are never going to link to each other, or that those links will always lose value. Read on, and I’ll explain.

Good Reciprocal Linking

You might come to the conclusion that you never want to exchange or trade links with any other site. Don’t worry, as that’s not true. The big problem is with excessiveness and automation of the link exchange programs. They create much search engine spam, annoy site visitors, and really serve no one but the site owners. There is such a thing as good reciprocal linking. When this occurs, it is much more natural. Two sites that link to each naturally, in a way that benefits users, will have contextual links on content pages, and most likely will link to different pages on each other’s site. Here’s an example of a good reciprocal link situation where the links might not lose value: Site A has a topical page (we’ll call it A-1) from which it links naturally (in the body copy, with relevant link anchor text) to a certain page (we’ll call it B-2) on Site B. Site B, on a different page (B-3) links naturally to a different page (A-3) on Site A.

1stSearchEngineRankings.com has a great article on good reciprocal linking. Even so, reciprocal linking shouldn’t be the heart your link building strategy, although it can play a role. The best way to get link juice in the search engines is to first create quality content, and then get quality one-way inbound links from relevant sites (those with similar themes or topics).

Final Thoughts

Building links for the search engines isn’t the only thing to focus on. Building links for traffic is very important too. Strategic partnerships are very important, and if that involves linking back to each other, then great! you’ll definitely increase targeted traffic by doing this. Just understand that the search engines may not give it as much value. But if it brings traffic, then that’s definitely not a problem.

A smart strategy for building links to your site includes a combination of manual link building, and strategic use of linkbait. I’ve put together some link building resources for everyone here who wants to build legitimate, quality links.

Feel free to share your thoughts and input on this topic.

Tags:
SEO | link building | link exchange | reciprocal linking | WebGeek