FAQ's - Frequently Asked Questions

Reciprocal Linking / Link Exchanges

Table of Contents

  1. What is Reciprocal Linking?
  2. How will exchanging links with other sites benefit me?
  3. Should I use a regular webpage or a linking program / script?
  4. Which kind of linking program is the best?
  5. How many links can I put on a single webpage?
  6. Should I link to only certain sites or should I exchange links with everyone?
  7. Should I exchange links with my competitors?
  8. Why should I exchange links with sites that aren't related to my site?
  9. Should I have a linking policy?

Answers

  1. What is Reciprocal Linking?

    Reciprocal Linking is just another name for exchanging links. You place a link to theircompany.com on your site. In exchange the webmaster for theircompany.com puts a link to your site on their site. [Top of Page]
     
  2. How will exchanging links with other sites benefit me?

    You get 2 main benefits: traffic and search engine rankings.

    1. When people visit a website they will eventually leave that site; but where will they go? Hopefully to your site via the link that you have already placed there. The more links you exchange, the more traffic comes your way.

    2. Search engines use the number of links to your site as one of the criteria they use to determine your ranking in their listing of relevant websites. The more links to your site that you have out there, the higher your ranking within a search engine may be. [Top of Page]

  3. Should I use a regular webpage or a linking program / script?

    Get yourself a reciprocal link program. This program does most of the tedious work for you. All you need to do is:

    • Fill in a form to add a new link
    • Manage your link directory

    If you decide to add the reciprocal links to your site without a reciprocal link program, be prepared for a lot of hand coding. Even if you only cut and paste the link code, you still have to organize your links and manually create more webpages as your directory grows. Currently, the best reciprocal link program on the market (in our humble opinion) is ReciprocalManager. For more information on ReciprocalManager go to http://reciprocalmanager.com/swres/ihsproduct.html.  [Top of Page]

  4. Which kind of linking program is the best?

    The best kind of linking program is one that organizes your link exchange directory on HTML pages. The link exchange directory should allow the search engines and other link exchange programs to send their robots / spiders in and find and index all links within the directory especially yours. If the robots / spiders can't enter and index a link exchange directory, they can't find your site which is not good for you.
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  5. How many links can I put on a single webpage?

    We recommend 10 to 40 links per page. This is because having long link pages can exclude you from being listed by search engines. Search engines class such pages as link farms, which they consider search engine spamming. It also means that with a lack of organization links further down the page have very little chance of being found. [Top of Page]
     
  6. Should I link to only certain sites or should I exchange links with everyone?

    It's totally up to you who you link to, but keep the following in mind:

    • Is the site one that your visitors would be interested in?
    • Will the other site provide a fair link exchange?
    • Will being associated with this site help you or hurt you with regards to your visitors or search engines?
    • Is this site a link farm?
    • Can you easily contact this site or do they hide their contact information?
    • Make sure that you will get some real benefit from this link exchange.

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  7. Should I exchange links with my competitors?

    Absolutely. The search engines view this kind of link exchange as a good thing. The search engines believe that your peers are a good judge of the quality of your site. If your competitors will link to you then they [search engines] should too. Besides, you might have something to offer your competitor's customers that they [your competitors] can't offer. [Top of Page]
     
  8. Why should I exchange links with sites that aren't related to my site?

    Anyway you look at it your visitors will leave your site whether they buy from you or not. The question is where will they go? They go back to the search engines where they see the same old top 10 sites. They do this because they don't see a link section on your site that provides them with an alternative means of surfing on.
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  9. Should I have a linking policy?

    Yes. Having a linking policy tells the potential link exchange partner what your criteria are for accepting a link exchange. What does their site need to have in order to get their link placed on your site? Our linking policy is accessible from every page in the IT Home Services site through our main navigation menu. We also recommend that you visit http://www.webreunited.com for more detailed information about linking policies. [Top of Page]
     









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