Exchanging Links

[pokerextras]

Is anybody still exchanging links for seo? I've totally resisted doing it on my site as the common opinion is that google frowns on link swaps so i'm wondering if anybody has any experience of this recently. Have link swaps helped or hindered your serps?

[Trikkur]

Is anybody still exchanging links for seo? I've totally resisted doing it on my site as the common opinion is that google frowns on link swaps so i'm wondering if anybody has any experience of this recently. Have link swaps helped or hindered your serps?

I don't think common opinion is that at all. I think you are misinterpreting it quite a bit. Link exchanges aren't a bad thing and actually will help your in the SERPs no doubt about it.

On the other hand if you decide that you want to "game the system" and set up some program to link swap 500 sites every day, then yes - more than likely you will get hit with a penalty.

[Ridge]

Well what you do not need to do, is have a page with 500 links on it for no apparent reason. If you are going to have a "resource or directory" type of page, then actually make it useful. . Give some details about the site, use good anchor text, and make the page BE a resource and not just a blatant spam page.

[pokerextras]

I was thinking of asking some quality sites to do some in content link exchanges. Ie, linking to each other from words in articles on each others sites, or even swapping articles with links. Do you think this would be helpful for seo and less likely to get penalised?

[321]

Google has no problem with sites exchanging links. They do have a big problem with sites trying to hide they are doing it, and they can easily detect "hide the link exchange in content" schemes if done more than a couple times.

[pokerextras]

Why would they want to detect in content links? There's nothing wrong with it. If anything they're better and far more natural.

[321]

Why would they want to detect in content links? There's nothing wrong with it. If anything they're better and far more natural.

They want to detect all kinds of links, and then they seek to determine which ones are genuine votes and which ones are contrivances. While they don't mind link exchanges, they have a low opinion of link pages. It's logical that they would have the same opinion of those links whether they are on one page or spread over a site. Spreading them over a site though is a less natural way to "exchange links", and is a spam tactic sometimes used by people who underestimate Google's ability to figure things out.

That doesn't mean that if you trade articles that it is spam. It is spam if you trade articles to try and fool the search engine. So, it could be a good, natural way for two sites to help each other... or it could be a spam scheme. And then, whatever the reality is, Google and Bing will decide what THEY think is going on.

[pokerseo]

unfortunately it's often necessary to break your scruples just to compete, b/c everyone else is doing it :s

[pokeragain]

As everything in SEO and in life, it is a matter of degree.

[patmcluk]

Hey, a link is a link is a link. But if you have a site called widget.com, and you have reciprocal inks with greenwidget.com and redwidget.com, then they are rated higher than a link with redbollard.com.
The more links with related websites the better, but .....a link is a link is a link!