Linking is a very broad topic with many heated arguements between developers and SEO cowboys. Linking has been around since the inception of the Internet. After all that is what the Internet is based on: 'one site linking with another to another to another'. At the beginning of the Internet if you went to a site typically you would find a set of links to other sites that you may be interested in. That was the only way to navigate the web.

This was even before the big Search Engines. Then came Google who immediately recognized the benefits of sites linking with each other. They developed part of their algorithm to consider reciprocal linking.

It used to be popular to get as many sites to link with you as possible in order to look important to the SE's. Now days doing this is search engine suicide. You have to be more selective on what site's you link with and what sites link back to you.

Now the SE's are more strict on what they give 'credit' for. Linking with irrelevant sites is the biggest no-no . One of the biggest problems with sites is that they think link quantity is better than link quality. On my site I have a very strict linking policy; however, I am willing to link with any site that is relevant to my business and beneficial to the end user.

Since my link exchange is relatively new there are only 4 or 5 links total. I plan to add more; however, adding links should appear 'organic' and links should be added slowly. That is right -- slowly. The SE's remember how many links you had last time they indexed and if that number jumps up too high in too short a period of time it could potentially negatively affect your rankings.

I run my linking based on what is best for my end user. While difficult to do I try to imagine if the SE's didn't exist how I would market my site. Would I still be interested in reciprocal linking? YES! Most of my visitors come from other sites that are linked to me. Some of my visitors come from the SE's (thank you search engines!). Personally I will take both types of visitors.

I do not require all sites to link back with my site either. If the other site is truly beneficial to my end user I will link to their site regardless of whether they will link back to my site at all. Some SEO's may disagree with this and consider it PR leaking. Remember though that I do my linking for the benefit of my end user. In the end that brings me more business.

A good reciprocal linking campaign does not happen overnight and takes constant patience and hard work. Linking is a vital aspect of your website and website marketing. I hope to continue to write more articles about ethical reciprocal linking.

If anyone has any linking related questions please feel free to contact me using the Contact Me button. I don't know the answer to everything but I have seen what works and what doesn't.

Until then..... happy linking!