A Reciprocal Link is a combination of an Out Bound One Way Link and an In Bound One Way Link. This type of link is almost always done because of the following reasons and in no particular order:

  1. You own both websites and want to promote both of them.
  2. Both website owners understand that search engines follow links and agree to promote one another’s website.
  3. Your website compliments the other website and their website compliments yours. You both either established a partnership of some sort not knowing about link values that are being exchanged or it may be a complete coincidence that you linked to them and they linked to you.
  4. Insert Creative Link Building Strategy Here

As you can imagine when a Reciprocal Link is established it is essentially the same thing as you voting for another website and that same website voting for you. Many people believe that this is an even exchange and it ends up negating one another. This isn’t true and I’ll discuss why in my next post titled, “Not All Links Are Considered Equal”.

This type of link usually takes an extensive amount of time doing research and communicating with the other website owner. It also has a very poor conversion ratio and you might find yourself trying to establish links with 100 websites only to find out 1, 2 or ten other websites actually respond to you.

Over the past couple of years and more fiercely in 2007, search engines have been taking a fighting stance against reciprocal linking. These types of links are carrying less and less value when it comes to helping your websites rankings within search engines. I’d strongly advise against obsessive exchanges and stick to exchanges for purposes other than boosting your rankings.

This is the third article of many to come about links. I’m writing more each day so that I can try and cover as much link building topics as possible. My goal is to post one every two days so you can expect my next post on January 7th. In the meantime, feel free to check out past posts below or check out some of the topics I have lined up:

In Bound One Way Links
Out Bound One Way Links
Reciprocal Link
Not All Links Are Considered Equal
Is The Link Worth It?
Finding Links - Competition Review
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John Jones

- 10 minutes of SEO, SEM & Internet Marketing

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