Giorgos’ recent post on link exchanges using LinkEx generated a few questions about the value of link exchanges. I thought it might be interesting to revisit some signs of quality links and then discuss where link exchanges might make sense when acquiring links.
Let me first say link exchanges are far from my preferred source of links. Google has made it pretty clear they don’t care for these kind of changes and while that doesn’t mean all link exchanges are bad, mass reciprocal linking is generally frowned upon as a useful seo tactic. I’ve never engaged in link exchange networks and have no plans on doing so in the near future. Still there can be times when it makes sense to reciprocate a link and there can be times when a direct trade of links is perfectly natural. Think trackbacks for an example of a natural reciprocal link.
Link exchanges are time consuming. If you have done few you know what I mean. The trouble is not with arranging them and placing them; you need to maintain them as well. You need to check once in a while to see if the link partners are linking back to you and act accordingly. It gets even more time consuming if the link exchanges are 3 way in which case you have to check a third domain that has your link included. Its hard to keep track of all these, and it gets even harder the more link exchanges that you arrange.