Is Reciprocal Linking History?

Reciprocal Links vs. Anchor Text Links

Just a few short years ago there was a web page description tag called the Meta Keywords tag. It quickly became popular with unscrupulous web masters incorrectly applying keywords in an effort to rank better in the search engines. Google and many other top search engines ended up discounting, and ultimately ignoring meta keywords. It is still important to include them in your page, but for different reasons.

Increasingly, search engines have been placing more importance on website's "connectivity" to other websites to determine how important or relevant the site is. This connectivity is done through linking. Search engines perceive links as votes of confidence, and have determined that sites with more links are important and legitimate. More links coming into your site means more "votes of confidence" that your site is worth a visit. Majority rules, democracy in action!

Who stuffed the ballot box?

Again, unscrupulous types have figured out a way to circumvent the system in an effort to gain a better position in the search engines. The technique was to build massive amounts of inbound links quickly, triggering the search engines to point to your site. The most effective way for the spammers, for lack of a better term, to accomplish this fast linking was to band together and form reciprocal linking pools, co-ops, alliances, and partnerships. The majority could no longer be counted on to vote correctly.

Google quickly caught-on to this method and had to make a decision. Google decided that the majority could not be trusted, and therefore their vote will be discounted. In fact, reciprocal links from sites that have a page rank of PR1-3 don't even count anymore. What's more, associating your site with large reciprocal link swapping programs could potentially cause the search engines to label your site as "unreliable," which could have a negative impact on your over all web position.

Educated Voters Rule!

There is a new vote in town, and it is called the One Way Relevant Anchor Text Link. It's not really new, it's just more important today. The search engines have determined that if someone is willing to "vote" for your site and receive nothing in return, than you must be worth a visit.

Every link into your site has a "value" or "weight" that is assigned by the search engines. Mathematically, it is very possible (even probable) for a dozen One Way Links to have more value than 100 reciprocal links. Think of it as the "New Math" on the web.

The Hanging Chad...

A question I get almost every day is: "So why not go out and purchase some great One Way Links and be done with it?" The answer is simple. Google has a patent (yes, a patent!) on its method of determining a web sites overall valuation and relevance. Buying links circumvents their methods, and can absolutely result in your site being ejected from the search results altogether. What would happen if you woke up tomorrow and your website was no longer in Google?

In addition, that same group of unscrupulous types have come up with all kinds of methods and tactics to turn those link pools into artificial looking One Way Links. Google is a lot like the IRS; when they catch you cheating, you lose.

In a recent discussion of SEO and Linking experts regarding link co-ops the consensus was unimanious:

"An associate of mine just got pummeled for participating in a co-op. He believes so anyway. He's talked to a few other people in the co-op and their websites got penalized about 2 weeks ago. His website is still cached in Google, but it just doesn't rank for anything anymore. Even worse, he shows up on the 3rd page if you search the name of his site!" WebFu Design

"Sounds like a recipie for disaster to me! These links pages would surely go supplemental on Google (search results) as they would all be duplicates!" sem4u

"The problem with any link pool/coop/unnatural link system is that it is not permanent and some more than others rotate and change which can have a pretty devastating effect on your serps with members leaving/arriving and engines looking for key indicators that suggest unnatural linking." Scott

"It is risky right now. Some people think Google is dropping the ax on sites that use link co-ops. Best to not participate and just build up inbound links by other methods." A2ZSEO

The Votes are in.

Article Source: http://content.all-seo.com

David Evarts has extensive experience in web promotion and link development SEO. Contact David at 1any.com anchor text links directory for additional information or consulting. Or just search "anchor text link directory" on Google and choose the #1 result :)

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