Hi everybody again!

I've been building in-coming links (reciporical and one-way).

It sure takes an awful lot of time & energy.

Has anyone tried this (or similar) ?
It is an link exchange program. They claim they only
help link quality same-theme related sites

http://value-exchange.sitesell.com/

Should I give it a try?

Thanks,
Andy

I only checked it briefly Andy but my main issue with these types of things is that most of the websites that seek out these types of services are hurting for quality links themselves and therefore the VALUE  that they can offer with a link to your site is minimal.

Reciprocal links seem to be worth little these days unless they come from very worthwhile relative sites so I don’t see the types of sites a program like this would attract to be of great use to you.

If registration is free and you don’t mind being on their mailing list then it may be worth a quick snoop around.

I signed with them years ago - generally the sites are poor quality.
Now I cannot stop getting their emails....

have the same experience with another links exchange site. keep getting e-mails/requests everyday from practically newly built websites. can't stop them either like matte...

Thanks guys for the advice.

"If it sounds too good to be true,
it probably is"

Hi faf-andy.  Don't do it. 

And forget recip links.  Archaic means of traffic and ranking.  Concentrate on content.

soulripper wrote:

have the same experience with another links exchange site. keep getting e-mails/requests everyday from practically newly built websites. can't stop them either like matte...

About eight a week...

Dear Ryan Steyn,

We would like to inform you that you have a new link request pending in your Link Market account.

To login to your account and respond to this request please, Click Here.

I stopped snooping around em in 2006, never paid a cent or used a link... just wanted to see what it was about.
Cant seem to lose em

Nic wrote:

Reciprocal links seem to be worth little these days unless they come from very worthwhile relative sites so I don’t see the types of sites a program like this would attract to be of great use to you.

What he said ----

I don't even consider them when doing SEO to be honest. I link out to sites I believe will interest the end  user. If some day I heep to get a link back (usually editorial) then I have a recip in a round about kind of way ( Like here for example.. my sig and articles link to my site, but I often link to SR in posts... thus a recip of sorts)

The problem with recips is they are low in value thus low in ROI for the effort. If Google's war against paid links is all about artificially increasing PR... then some day they may lok at recips that way since they are as well.... So, looking ahead, I tend to avoid them.

faf-andy wrote:

Hi everybody again!

I've been building in-coming links (reciporical and one-way).

It sure takes an awful lot of time & energy.

Hello Andy...sure does take a lot of time and energy.

I use the advice I found in an article on SR...type your best keyword phrases into google, yahoo, MSN and contact the top 30 sites that come up in each search...that way you are assured that if they accept a link to you it will be relevant to your pages and have good enough PR.

Another technique I use is to sign up for their newsletters (if they have one) and when they send the first one, I compliment them on it and make sure they remember my name. A personal compliment always goes a long way to creating a relationship with someone in your own industry...I highly recommend it...create a relationship and many of them will gladly give you a reciprocal link - even the big ones.

Nice to see you again,

Elizabeth

P.S. I even had one that used my compliment as a testimonial on their site with my name, links to all my sites and requested a special photo as well - I didn't even have to ask.

Another technique I use is to sign up for their newsletters (if they have one) and when they send the first one, I compliment them on it and make sure they remember my name. A personal compliment always goes a long way to creating a relationship with someone in your own industry...I highly recommend it...create a relationship and many of them will gladly give you a reciprocal link - even the big ones.

I'll try this, thanks Elizabeth.

As for the rest of the advice from everyone, I got
much more than I even hoped for.

I now understand the point about reciporical linking being
archaic, it can't be difficult for SEs to spot, even if it is 3- or 4-way.

One way incoming has to be good anyway? I try to get 1-way from
low PR (hobby etc) sites and high PR ones as well, as I think
this would be a natural link profile. But, always from tightly related
sites I consider to have good content and like reading.

About posting: I regularly answer questions on 3 of the most important
boards for my niche (independent travel). I have my sites urls in my signatures
and also answer questions with deep links to my pages when relevant.

What kind of weight do you think SEs give to this kind of links, is it worth
my time just for the links or should I consider it just researching what my target
group thinks / wants ?

Best Regs for everyone,
Andy

Well, a few things here today;

1. If you believe QuadZ - recips aren't dead-- tho I am still not a fan and will be staying away from them.

2. If you believe in some hints from a recent Goolge patent Charles and I had been looking at; FOrum links may also be devalued - though there is no direct evidence of course.

the determined query information ("the identified information") might not be propagated (e.g., down) to certain Web pages of the Website under consideration. For example, Web pages with a low score (e.g., a low page rank) might not get the identified information associated with them. As another example, the propagation of the identified information may be limited to a predetermined number (e.g., 2) of degrees of separation (e.g., number of backslashes from source Web page) of the source (e.g., home or root) Web page and the destination Web page in the Website. As yet another example, certain types of Web pages (e.g., press releases, message boards, forums, foreign language page (e.g., the destination page in a language other than that of the source page, etc.) might be excluded.

Who's to say though. I personally have to believe that at some point, with all the aggression towards Paid Links - that Google would devalue recips (obvious manipulation) and forum sigs (less obvious) at some point if tey don't alread

Here are a bunch of other ideas for Link Building

Arrrgggghhhhh!

Recips aren't dead! OK, Recips for getting up high in the SERPS are, BUT there is an important reason to recip for some sites.

Why does everyone seem to get Google tunnel vision?! YES, recips to get your new site high up on Google SERP is a waste of time or, at the very least, a lousy ROI, and "recipping" with a recip site is most likely going to end up giving you more spam then visitors! BUT there is more to the life of a web site then Google...or even Yahoo, MSN, yada yada yada!

What do we all want for our sites? To get interested visitors! Interested visitors do not all come from search engines. Where is the best place to find interested visitors? Find the folks who are visiting a bunch of sites like yours often!

I'm a passive recipper. (Seems I'm inventing a few new words, but, would hope you get what I mean in context.) When my site was brand new, I did what Elizabeth did, headed for the first 30 sites for my broadest KWs to find out if they recipped. Those recip links remain on my first site to this day, IF they generated any (and personally I don't care if it's merely 1-3 clicks per month) visitors. Then I went to look for sites like mine. The ones I liked, I sent e-mails to, letting them know that I liked their site and am including it in my links (passive recipping.) Of course, in my e-mail were my links, which more then likely got them interested in, at least, visiting my sites. The majority have recipped, although not all of them. BUT there is another important reason to link to other sites -- to give more info that our visitors might want to see. After all, no matter what the purpose is for our sites, we want to satisfy the itch a visitor has -- whether to get them to buy, or to learn more, or simply enjoy themselves.

When I first developed my original site, it was hard to find similar sites. Now, through the years, I've ended up developing a community of similar sites. I did end up finding a couple of similar sites, and they've done what I did/am still doing -- find others. By recipping with these sites back when they were brand new, I've stumbled onto something that helps my site grow! A couple of these sites have won nice awards for their humor and originality, which gives them an IBL from well known sites. Now they're growing, and my link is one of the first links they have. Since we all do the same thing in different styles, others are linking to me without even asking for a recip. My visitors are growing because they find me after laughing at other similar sites and clicking on their links. After enjoying mine, they click on my links to find still more. We also enjoy visiting each other's sites occasionally.

I suppose it is hard to get links back to our sites, but, seems to me, if we love what we're doing, it's not very hard work, because it's fun to keep adding onto our knowledge and keep passing that knowledge onto our visitors in a variety of methods, all connected to good SEO practices. The only hard work I find is to have the time to set up the site well, keep up with it, and now trying to get a new site going while dealing with all the stuff I don't like to do in real life, (like chores and crap), or doing the stuff I do like to do outside of my sites.

The only trouble I've ever had getting links back to my site was the article writing thingy, since I thought it would be hard to come up with related subject articles. A little tactical approach to getting a backlink from a well known site (Wikipedia) is helping that! I'm in the process of studying a book about the history of the teddy bear, since the present Wiki article was written by someone with no references and not nearly enough info to make it thorough. While taking notes, I've become saturated with new knowledge that would make for good articles for related sites and even for related magazines. The more we learn about our subject area, the more we can teach, the more articles we can produce, the more our names get out there, so the more visitors to our sites.

Good use of recips helps get the right audience, even if the SEs don't like them. Learning more about our subject matter and using that info to get us noticed is a better way of spending our time then going for quick fixes. It takes a while for a site to take off anyway, why not use that time to develop a site folks want to visit, (and even give them places to visit that will demonstrate how good your site is), as well as, learn enough to give more info to folks, so they can find you -- both through your site and through article writing?

And, since I'm boldly going against the flow anyway, I also find starting up a Webring that shows off your site, as well as finds others that enhance it, isn't a complete waste of time. Sure, it doesn't do squat for SEO, but it hands your visitors a wonderful group of other related sites that will emerse them into a variety that compliment yours. Truth is, Search Engines are not the only means for finding targeted visitors, and just because it isn't SEO friendly, doesn't mean it isn't visitor gathering or visitor friendly.

OK, time to duck while the fallout hits.

Hi all!

First post...here goes.  Speaking about linking....I've been fortunate to get a nice amount of inbound links through article marketing.  Some have been published on high traffic locations (Holiday Inns) but most appear on blogs with little traffic.  Most of them look like this  16055.blogspot.com/2007/10/no-shortage-of-family-actvities-in.html.  I know it's a one-way link to me, but from many "throw away" sites.  Are these of any use?  Will the SEs disregard them due to little other content or is a link a link?

Thanks!

Link exchanges have value beyond search engines, as I've seen a number of hits from sites with which I've exchanged links. Not many, to be sure, but until google decides to punish me (once again) for having reciprocal links, I'll keep them around, though I'm not spending very much time pursuing them. Actually, no time now, since I have so much else to do.

Interestingly, I regularly recieve linking requests from sites with related topics and have requested a link in exchange. I have never heard back from any of them. Obviously they're chasing links for SEO purposes and know that the one way is much better from that standpoint. I don't accomodate them. And as a result, my links page(s) are rather sparsely populated. If it weren't already up, I wouldn't put one up.

I'm wondering, however, whether I should put affiliate links on the links pages. I don't suppose it could hurt, and all I'd have to do it put the coded url in rather than just a "normal" url. The likelihood of making any money on it would be slim. However, slim's better than none. And it would keep my links pages  "http://www.carbuzzard.com/links" from looking so pathetically empty.  One must keep up one's appearances. After all, in Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," he wrote that when you are strong, appear weak, and when you are weak, appear strong. 

I'm wondering, however, whether I should put affiliate links on the links pages. I don't suppose it could hurt, and all I'd have to do it put the coded url in rather than just a "normal" url. The likelihood of making any money on it would be slim. However, slim's better than none. And it would keep my links pages  "http://www.carbuzzard.com/links" from looking so pathetically empty.  One must keep up one's appearances.

This is a very interesting point, especially about using coded links.
I didn't understand why they were on offer.

After all, in Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," he wrote that when you are strong, appear weak, and when you are weak, appear strong.

IMO the best book ever for anyone in business.