Reciprocal Links & Link Popularity

Exchanging links with complementary websites provides both scope for attracting visitors and increasing your ranking in the search engines through incoming link popularity. Where possible try to obtain links on the home pages of other websites, which are likely to carry more 'weight' with search engines.

Many of the search engines now consider link popularity as part of the overall equation for ranking web pages, so the more good quality (in terms of their ranking) websites you can get to link to you, the better. Avoid any web sites that consist only of links or are of a 'mature' nature, since these may have an adverse effect on your own ranking.

Spend a little time researching potential link exchanges by seeking out complementary websites on the search engines with some well thought-out keyword phrases. Not everyone will be receptive to swapping links but if they carry links on their home page or they have a seperate resources page then they may be interested. Identifying the sites that are already receiving reasonable levels of traffic is the key to success here. A reciprocal link on a site that receives little or no traffic is worthless.

When exchanging links it is only recommended that you place them on your home page where the quality of the reciprocating site is sufficient to justify the risk of taking visitors away from your own site.

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