The "Problem" With Reciprocal Links

When all else fails, you may begin considering reciprocal links. We don't like this strategy all that much because search engines are continuously getting more sophisticated about detecting artificial linking patterns. Unfortunately, one of the most artificial linking patterns is reciprocal links, since natural link patterns are not typically reciprocal. If Yahoo lists a site in their directory, that site doesn't routinely link back to Yahoo. Of course there are plenty of exceptions, but, regardless, the engines are looking for pages that rank well due to popularity based on content - and they want to avoid sites where it appears the webmaster has spent a lot of time swapping links.

So, look at things from the search engine's point of view. If CNN runs an article about how great your company is and your company's site links back to the CNN article, does that look normal from the SEPOV? ...sure it does. Besides, CNN is an authoritative site that is white listed. They can do no wrong in the eyes of the engine and the link exchange looks like a natural link structure from the SEPOV. And, your site's page can expect a substantial boost in ranking.

On the other hand, if your site (with it's PR=4 or 5) is linked by Joe Blow's homepage with a PR=1, 2, or 3 and you link back to Joe's page, you shouldn't expect much, if any, boost in your rankings. In fact, it's entirely possible the two links are discounting each other based on an assumed link exchange arrangement that looks contrived because neither page is "authoritative" from the SEPOV.

Now, if you had, say 50 similar link arrangements, and the links were on-topic, and none of the pages involved had tripped the spam filters, then your page should get a reasonable boost in rankings. Still, you'd fair better simply by getting a single killer link from an authoritative site like CNN, Yahoo Directory, DMOZ, ZDNet, and so forth.

The point is, focus your efforts on collecting all the links you can from authoritative sites. Most importantly, be very careful about who you link back to because you might just be diminishing any benefit that would otherwise be derived from your incoming link. And, in terms of building page relevancy, there is rarely, if ever, any benefit to linking back to sites that are insignificant, untrusted, or suspected of behaving badly in terms of SE protocol. It can even hurt you.


Be Careful Who You Link Back To!

Gaining links from off-topic and perhaps not-trusted sites may not be your first choice, but, reportedly, it won't exactly hurt your rankings - they might even help a little. However, beware of getting yourself into a link exchange relationship with these sites and remember that you should not link back to them. Currently, the rule is that incoming links won't hurt you but outgoing links to sites that behave badly, can.

In other words, if you're left with only the option to swap links, be sure you do so carefully because linking to a site that has been penalized for policy infractions (i.e. search engine spam) can cause your site to be penalized as well. To help you avoid such a scenario, here are four cautionary steps you should take before linking to another site:

1. Search for their domain name on Google and Yahoo. If they're not listed on one or either of the engines, that's a bad sign. Linking to them could get your site penalized and possibly banned. Besides, even if they aren't a so-called "bad" site, linking to a site that the engines don't know about won't help you in the rankings anyway.
   
   However, if they are listed you can proceed to step two.
2. Determine who is already linking to them. The more incoming links they have, the better. And, the more important the sites that are linking to them, the better. Their PageRank score is one indicator of how important Google thinks the site is.
3. Beware of linking to sites or pages with a PR=0 (zero). This could mean that they've been penalized by Google. Granted, this test may not apply to very new sites, but if a site has been around for a while and lacks any PageRank, then you should be wary of linking to it.
4. Avoid linking to sites with controversial topics. Good examples of such sites would include gambling, adult, pharmacy, or loan/debt sites (unless you happen to be in one of these industries and the topic matches the content of your page)

Remember:

• You probably won't be hurt by who links to you.
• However, you can definitely be hurt by who you link to.

Train Your Eye On The Primary Goal - Profits!

Of course, our biggest assumption is that you're optimizing your site with profits in mind. That being the case, you'll want to always focus your efforts on strategies and relationships that will generate the most revenue relative to effort. Therefore, look first for link relationships that will produce traffic that fits the profile of your customer market.

While it's true that incoming links from just about any site provides a slight boost to your page popularity (leading to better search engine ranking), such links all-too-often fail to produce targeted traffic which is what you really should be looking for. This is one of the many reasons a link from a topic-related site is immeasurably better than a link from an off-topic site.


Summary

We've covered a lot of ground so let's review where we've been:

1. Focus on creating a natural incoming link structure that builds steadily but gradually over time.
2. Focus on getting links from authoritative sites with high PageRank. If they also happen to be on-topic, then all the better.
3. It's ok to get links from less important sites but remember: the lower the PageRank of a referring page, the more you'll want it to match your topic.
4. Strive to get your inbound links placed on pages with few outbound links...the fewer the better.
5. See to it that the URL format of your referring links are consistently identical.
6. Get your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links as much as possible. However, avoid having all identical incoming link anchor text. Strive for some variety.
7. When starting out, focus on the major directories as a source of important links then shift to the topic-specific directories to solidify the theme relevance of your site.
8. Work your trade directories, press releases, suppliers, customers, and testimonials as an outside the box approach to building a gradual, solid, lasting, and natural incoming link structure. Think creatively.
9. Don't waste a lot of time getting reciprocal links. Their value is diminishing in the current SE environment. We see a time coming when the value of reciprocal links between non-authoritative sites will be discounted or entirely canceled out.
10. Avoid reciprocal links with pages that are designed solely for exchanging links.
11. Avoid linking back to sites that are unlisted by Google or Yahoo. Seriously avoid linking to link farms, web rings or any site that exhibits behavior contrary to a search engine's recommended protocol. Avoid linking to controversial sites unless they perfectly match the topic of your page.
12. Always remember that profits are your goal. More links does not always add more customers. Avoid wasting energy on projects that may increase link counts but add little or nothing to gain customers that generate profits.

There you have the top 12 essential strategies for building and structuring your inbound links. Of course, building such a natural incoming link structure takes time. That's precisely why the engines tend to highly rank the sites that conform to this pattern. Over time, experience has taught us that overnight success strategies are fickle while the solid content and slow but steady link building approach remains the cornerstone for succeeding long term.

Follow these guidelines and sooner or later you'll be looking like a top ranking SEO genius.

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Oppenheimer Group, Inc.
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