23 replies to this topic

[prawin]

I think so, provided each link is relevant to the other's web page. I can't exchange links with a detergent soap web site if mine is all about antique furniture....

Why not ???

Can i ask "Why?"
Well if you have nothing else to do then its ok..


Just my opinion.
Soory for that much late..but cant help


Prawin

[ewc21]

Prawin, maybe I better give an explanation instead of providing an example that's easy to dispute.

What I meant was that I am not gonna link to a page if the page has no relevance to my page content.

[chrishirst]

relevant is a very very broad brush where products and people are concerned

Tractors are relevant to fencing products (not the foil & epee stuff) though I'm sure there are people out there who have a tractor and fence as a sport  in which case both would be relevant to them.
Fencing products are relevant to wellington boots (if you are repairing fences chances are it will be muddy)
Wellington boots are relevant to thick socks,

so along that chain Tractors and Socks can be relevant

Let's see a search engine work that out!!!
Relevancy is really for people NOT SEs

[Scottie]

It's common sense, really.

Think of linking to other businesses like allowing another business to leave their business cards on your checkout desk, and they put your cards on their desk.

Do you want people to think your business is somehow related to or endorsing the other business? Because that's what you are doing. A link says "We recommend this site."

If you have a reason to recommend it, (ie, you think it's a cool site, it belongs to a friend, they have the best prices on accessories your clients will want, it's in your local area, etc, etc) then link to it!

It's really that easy.

Do I want to recommend this site (and do I want them to recommend mine?) If yes, then link away. If it gives you an uneasy feeling or you can't think of a reason why you'd want to link to them (other than trying to manipulate your link popularity), don't do it.

You don't need tests or numbers. I can't imagine how you would test that anyway since there's no way to create a "pure test environment". Other factors will always be skewing your results and it's easy to think you've "proved" something but very difficult to reproduce it. If you can't consistently get the same results, you can't prove that x caused y.

Common sense is the way to go!

[ToolInventor]

I think so, provided each link is relevant to the other's web page. I can't exchange links with a detergent soap web site if mine is all about antique furniture....

Thumbs up on it. Use your brain when you do link exchange and don't try to catch as many links as possible. This can have bad effect with SEs.

On all the rest - no worries. Even Matt Cutts has 'television' on his blog - and he is the Google chatter who is supposed to talk about SEs.

[glengara]

*..so along that chain Tractors and Socks can be relevant*

Right, but context plays its part, a link to Everfreshsox.com from CHtractors.com/drivingtips/foot-care would be relevant, but as just one more link in a links page?

[mischievous_honey08]

Having a lot of inbound links will really give your site traffic. But remember, inbound links must also be relevant to your site.

If not, useless

[ARizzo]

Hi mitash,

There’s been some good advice in these replies so here’s my philosophy.

First you need to develop your linking strategy; reciprocal linking is ONE part of the overall strategy. Ask yourself "what do I want to provide my visitors?", personally I don't like Link Directories anymore, it's just to easy to search for what you want than click on someone’s link and hope to find what you're looking for. That doesn't mean I disagree with Reciprocal Linking.

When people find a site they want to read and while reading that site they find a link to another site they'll follow that link, but they found that link in your content not in some Link Directory. It takes more effort but the quality of link and the agreeable responses you get back are higher than just proposing a link swap intended for Link Directories.

If you send someone (use names here) and email offering to link to the page with this content if they'd return the favor and link to your page that contains this content (from their particular page) then it’s a win-win-win-win situation. Each respective site and there visitors (that’s 4) get a good resource.

This does take more effort but it's worth the time.

[Directory_SEO]

i think it is still effective as long as the page link to you got a decent PR and is relevant to the topic of your site