Let's Swap Links for Ridiculous Reasons!
Ok, I have a very loud bee in my bonnet today. I am just so sick of getting link request emails from idiots who think there are huge search engine benefits to :
a) reciprocal link swapping.
b) reciprocal link swapping between sites that have absolutely zero in common and offer zero benefit to each other's audience.
The latest request came this morning. It's from the webmaster of a site about pregnancy stress. He wants to offer me a "valuable link" from his site to my search engine optimization site, in return for a reciprocal link.
What's up with that??
But wait, it gets better. He's ALREADY linked to me. Yippee! I can't wait for the flood of pregnant visitors to my site clambering to indulge their SEO cravings. But wait, there's more. In return for linking to his site, he's going to offer me a FREE e-book called "Find Out How One Mother Discovered The Keys To Having a Stress Free and Happy Pregnancy". OhMyGod. That has sealed the deal for me. NOT!
Buddy, here's a bit of free advice for you:
1) Reciprocal links are pretty much worthless for search engine value these days. In-bound one way links from high quality sites are much more valuable from a search engine relevancy perspective.
2) If you are going to seek out reciprocal links, for heaven's sake, swap links with sites that offer related or complementary content to yours! What's the point offering your site visitors a link if it doesn't relate to what they are seeking on your own site?
3) Don't seek out links based on perceived search engine value. Swap links because they offer traffic to your site or valuable resources to visitors of your own site.
4) "Stress free" and "happy" could never be associated with the word "pregnancy". As someone who has gone through nine months of nausea and back pain, followed by a 48 hour labor, trust me on this.
Ah I feel better now.
a) reciprocal link swapping.
b) reciprocal link swapping between sites that have absolutely zero in common and offer zero benefit to each other's audience.
The latest request came this morning. It's from the webmaster of a site about pregnancy stress. He wants to offer me a "valuable link" from his site to my search engine optimization site, in return for a reciprocal link.
What's up with that??
But wait, it gets better. He's ALREADY linked to me. Yippee! I can't wait for the flood of pregnant visitors to my site clambering to indulge their SEO cravings. But wait, there's more. In return for linking to his site, he's going to offer me a FREE e-book called "Find Out How One Mother Discovered The Keys To Having a Stress Free and Happy Pregnancy". OhMyGod. That has sealed the deal for me. NOT!
Buddy, here's a bit of free advice for you:
1) Reciprocal links are pretty much worthless for search engine value these days. In-bound one way links from high quality sites are much more valuable from a search engine relevancy perspective.
2) If you are going to seek out reciprocal links, for heaven's sake, swap links with sites that offer related or complementary content to yours! What's the point offering your site visitors a link if it doesn't relate to what they are seeking on your own site?
3) Don't seek out links based on perceived search engine value. Swap links because they offer traffic to your site or valuable resources to visitors of your own site.
4) "Stress free" and "happy" could never be associated with the word "pregnancy". As someone who has gone through nine months of nausea and back pain, followed by a 48 hour labor, trust me on this.
Ah I feel better now.
2 Comments:
You are forgetting about one valuable aspect of link exchanges. The actual traffic you get from other sites. Everything is not search engine ranking or PR. If you have 1000 people giving you 10 visitors per day that is 10,000 free visitors to your site each day. Who cares about the SEO. I will take traffic any way I can get it. Of course you are right it is best to swap links with similar sites. I have made thousands of dollars in sales just from one such partner. SEO did not even come into our thoughts. He had traffic I wanted, I had traffic he wanted and we swapped. We have both been profitting for several years from this. By the way, my most profitable site has a PR0. I know a site with Alexa 9000 and PR0. PR aint everything. Traffic is.
Matt
Quickregister.net
I found your site by a google search. I would like to know what links and where on a page are the best kinds of links. I'm a new blogger and started up my 2nd blog this weekend http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com and an artist will email a recipe and a painting of a food from the recipe. We will link to her in our post and we will want a link exchange by having her put a permanent link to us somewhere on our side (in a sidebar with layout out --adding a new page element..Are these the same in value? Everyone talks about the value of links but I never know where to put these links --In a comments on another's site, in the post, or permanently in the blog roll. My other blog is http://nancystandlee.blogspot.com and http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com
Thanks, ns
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