What Are Reciprocal Links And Do They Still Work?

A reciprocal link is the internet link equivalent of "I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine".

A reciprocal link works by me saying that I will put up a link to your website so long as you put a link back to my website.

Of course, the search engines can spot reciprocal links pretty easily. Which has led some people to say that reciprocal links don't work any more.

Only the technicians at Google can tell you for sure whether this is the case.

My view is that since reciprocal aren't guaranteed to be given, the search engines will still give them some weight. But they almost certainly count one way links as being "better" than reciprocal links.

So if you can only get reciprocal links initially, go for them. Check the other site first to see that it is one you're happy to be associated with (but then you should be doing that anyway). Providing that's the case, go ahead and either request a reciprocal link or respond to a request that you've been sent.

You can also search out places that offer reciprocal links. Go to your favorite search engine, type in your target words and then add "add url" (in quote marks) before pressing the search button.

You should find plenty of places that will allow you to add your site to theirs. Take the time to go to the site in question.

You've already checked that the links page is indexed - you found it by searching on the web. So it's passed the first test.

Then snoop around by clicking some of the other pages.

See whether the site looks decent. Would you want to be associated with it? If so, go ahead and submit a reciprocal link request.

If all this sounds tedious, you're probably right. There are ways of automating these kind of link requests without being accused of spam. One of the ways is to use software to help you. A long standing program to do this is called Zeus. It takes quite a while to get to grips with it as you need to train the program as to which links are relevant to your site. This gets better over time and Zeus provides a good way of keeping track of your links.

Reciprocal links are still worth getting but the general opinion is that one way links are even better.

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