Link Exchanges

Searching for links is a long tedious process for webmasters. A number of websites link exchange websites are now available to webmasters to provide appropriate links. These are link exchanges, and fall into 2 categories, the link exchange directory, and the automated link exchange.

Both of these rely on reciprocal links between the link partners. Refer to the Link Exchange Llinkis to review the link exchanges we have tried. We still use them on a daily basis.

Link Exchange Directory

This is a directory of websites that are available to exchange links. In this exchange the control is left up to the individual webmaster. Many offer free services, all though slightly limited. This limit can be passed by joining several exchanges, making the total number of daily link exchanges multiply. To show how this can be used visit our reciprocal Link Directory pages. In order to create this links directory we used the a number of exchanges. Note that we have removed a number of links for various reasons.

Automated Link Exchange

Automated link echanges build links quickly without the process of inviting othe webmasters to eschange links. How do these excahnges work? Are links from these exchanges really important for Google PR? Are there any good automatic link exchanges?

These exchanges work by adding some code, either php or asp code to a page on your web site. All of the sites listed in the exchange will have a similar page with code. This code pulls data from a server, this server holds directory of registered sites, including yours which is then displayed on the page on your site, and every registered site. This gives the appearance that every site has a lonk back to your site. The number of links held in the directory can vary from a few hunder to a few thousand. In a matter of days the number of backlinks can jump substantially very quickly.

Automatic link exchange programs are often considered pointless, for a variety of reasons. There are a number of problems associated with these types of exchanges:

• A sudden increase in backlinks isn't going to look to natural and could get you banned.
• The web sites you do exchange links with are often not relevant or only remotely relevant.
• Some of the web sites part of the link exchange program often use spam techniques.

Don't trust automatic linking software. It's very easy to get listed in link-farms and dodgy directories when using automatic submission software. You want to ensure that you have a certain level of control over who and how your site gets linked. The most valuable links you can get are from highly (Google PR) ranked sites that are related to your optimised page content.

If considering these exchanges, do so with care. It may be wiser to search for link partners manually, it may be more work, but in the end will bring you more, and will prove better for the long term.