Reciprocal Links - Good for SEO & Google Ranking?

By: Adam Smith Posted on: 2008-02-24 ** Print Article ** ** Copy Article ** - Category Feed

Article Summary: One of the important factors in ranking well on search engines such as Google is ensuring that you have a number of links pointing from other websites to your website.

Introduction - The link phenomenon

One of the important factors in ranking well on search engines such as Google is ensuring that you have a number of links pointing from other websites to your website. Website links can be a confusing thing, there are many terms used to describe them including one way links, reciprocal links, backlinks, inbound links but to explain what I'm talking about here - lets say you own ACME Shoe Sales, and you are on another website say www.great-aussie-footwear.com and you see a link that says "Visit ACME Shoe Sales" and you click on it - and it takes you to the ACME Shoe Sales, then this helps the ranking of ACME Footwear.

This type of link is called an "inbound link" to ACME, or confusingly, is sometimes referred to as a Backlink for the ACME website.

So how do you get these links to your website?

Well, there are many ways to do this including posting messages to forums with links to your website, listing your business in online directory websites, getting business partners to link to you, paying people for links (a risky practice these days), and "Reciprocal Links" where you agree to link to someone if they link to you.

Reciprocal links - will they help?

The answer is yes and no.A few years ago, reciprocal linking alone would get you ranked well on the search engines. The problem was that everyone figured this out and so many professional SEO companies abused the practice and setup massive reciprocal linking programmes - have you ever got one of those spammy emails from people asking you to link to them if they link to you?

So they wont help?

The answer is yes, and no. There are two benefits you get from a link from someone else's website that points to your website.

* a) Referral benefit
* b) Ranking benefit


Referral Benefit

By this we're talking about the fact that if someone is on the other website, and they come across your link and they click on it - well they arrive at your website.

Ranking Benefit

Ranking benefit is what we discussed earlier where the search engines will recognise this link as a vote of your websites importance and give you weighting / ranking for this.

So back to Reciprocal Links - will they help?

The answer is yes and no....but this time, we'll try to answer the question I promise! If a website owner approaches you who has a website that is related to your industry but not competetive to your business, and you think that people on their website may be the right sort of target audience who you'd like to have come to your website, then by all means exchange links with them.

If a website from an overseas website approaches you but you don't sell to overseas customers, or if a website from an unrelated industry approaches you, then don't exchange links in the hope they will deliver strong rankings.

Article Source: http://www.upublish.info

About the Author:
Adam Smith
This article, was written by Phil Baddock, Salsa Internet's Search Marketing Director. If any of this didn't make sense, or if you need help with building high quality links to your website, Phil can be contacted on phil@salsainternet.com.au This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , or read the Free Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) eBook .

Keywords: Web+Design, SEO, Internet+Marketing, Online+Marketing, Websites, eCommerce.

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