In short, yes, it works, for SEO.

But it depends on which site you're linking with.

First, Google doesn't count every inbound link to your website. It only counts the links from websites that it feels has a certain level of authority. Spam sites are not counted for obvious reasons.

There are also many websites that Google cannot index for a variety of reasons, including slow responding servers, or an inability to resolve a domain name on a dynamic IP address. If these websites have links pointing to your site, obviously they won't be counted.

Google doesn't index links contained within Javascript.

Content duplication is another reason why so many inbound links are not counted. If the same list of links is duplicated across several websites, it doesn't count them all. The same with Blogrolls duplicated across all pages of a blog. Google will only count a few of the pages.

But I do know that one-to-one reciprocal linking works because I've done this with many of my websites, and I can see it in using Google's "link:" operator. This is how you can tell if reciprocal linking helped your overall SEO, by seeing if the inbound link shows up on this search. Type "link:http://www.yoursite.com" to see which inbound links Google has credited to your site.

How to Choose a Reciprocal Link Partner

Trade links with websites that publish unique content. Two real estate agents trading links with each other is perfect. Both will get an SEO benefit.

However, if your website has a higher PageRank than your link partner, it's true that you'll pass more PageRank into their site, than what you'll get back. But not always.

The amount of PageRank that gets passed through to another site is determined by the number of links on that page. If you're linking to another agent's site from your homepage, and your homepage has a total of 20 links, including links to other sites and links to within your site, the PageRank that you transfer is divided by 20. So, if your homepage has a PageRank of 1,000, you'll transfer a value of 50 to the other site.

But if your partner's homepage has a PageRank of 600, but only had 5 links on their homepage, then he'll transfer a value of 120 to you.

Hence, a reciprocal link where you give out 50, and get back 120, is a pretty good deal. Who says one-to-one reciprocal linking doesn't work??

Remember that "PageRank" is a different animal than the PageRank you see on Google's Toolbar. The real PageRank I'm referring to is the much larger number that Google uses in its algorithm. The single-digit number you see in the toolbar is just an abbreviation of the real PageRank.

Get Links from Blogs

When discussing a reciprocal link exchange, often times I request a link from someone's blog. Google seems to love blogs.

I'll just ask for a mention within a blog article, which most bloggers feel is pretty easy to do.

Blogrolls are ok to reciprocate links from, but watch out. But some blogs have very long lists of blogroll links. In order to maintain them, bloggers often utilize a blogroll management system hosted by a third-party, such as Blogrolling. This third-party then gives the blogger a piece of Javascript to deliver the blogroll links. Google doesn't index Javascript, thus you're not getting any SEO value from it.

Also, bloggers tend to edit their blogrolls, and over time, they may forget about your link exchange, and remove you. This is why getting linked through a blog post is better.

Link Partners to Watch Out For

Be skeptical of trading links with link directories, or agent directories. Most of these won't earn you any SEO benefit. It's not always a black-n-white decision on which directories will work for you, but generally, Google counts links that were created by the publisher's choice. Most directories don't reflect personal choice, rather they're sites where anyone can get a link for some kind of consideration, such as payment, or reciprocal link.

The reason why reciprocal linking works between two agent websites, is because it mutually agreed upon by each agent, and because agent websites are not directories!

I used to have a partnership with Advanced Access, a company that creates real estate agent websites. They maintained a directory of links to various real estate information sites, and included a link to this site (RealEstateHow). They placed that directory on every agent site they created. My site was linked up from hundreds of agent sites across the USA. In return, I linked to back to each agent site from an agent directory that I maintained. In the end, I didn't pick up much benefit from this. Google didn't credit any of those inbound links to me, with the exception of a few. Meanwhile, I was passing through thousands of PageRank points to Advanced Access' clients. I was giving out PageRank, and getting virutally none back. Now, I don't do that anymore, and Advanced Access doesn't link to me either.

REL="no follow"

Google provides an attribute for the anchor tag called, REL="no follow". It tells the Google spider not to follow this link. Here's how you use it...

<a href="http://www.realestatehow.com" REL="no follow">Real Estate How</a>

Another website can insert this attribute to a link pointing to your website. It will negate any SEO value to you. If you conduct a link exchange, you'll want to check the inbound link (look at the source code), to make sure they didn't put this attribute in there.

For More Linking Tips

Read my archive page of linking tips, and Backlinks.

Labels: Reciprocal Linking

I received an e-mail from the webmaster of a real-estate oriented website, asking to do a link trade with us here at Real Estate and How. Actually, I think it's one of those pre-written letters that webmasters send en-masse to specific prospective partners.

Here is a quote from the letter...

This is in regards to Link-exchange program for our two websites movers.com & moversweb.com with Page Rank having 5 & 4 of Home page. This is part of our Search Engine Optimization program where we would like to place our two links on your sites. I hope that I will receive link from you in exchange of our links. As soon I receive a conformation for the link proposal, we will place
two links to your website.

This person is asking for a link exchange, but wanted to let me know that her two websites have a PR5 and PR4 respectively. I guess that's important for her to mention.

This is actually among the more tame link trade requests I get. Many of them demand that I may only link with them if I happen to have a site with a PR value of 3 or higher. In other words, they spam all the real estate sites, and remind everyone not to respond if they're too small!

It seem the real estate industry is very hell bent on getting back links from other sites, but has this belief that no one wants to exchange links with you if you're a low on the totem pole. What the Hell does it matter?

Just happy be you're getting a link. It's hard just to get even that!

I know what they're thinking. They're thinking, "If I have a page with PR6, and I'm linking to a site with PR3, then I'm giving them more PR value than what I'm getting back".

Don't look at it that way guys! First, look at it as getting traffic from that website. Any link, reasonably placed, will produce at least some traffic back. If you can get just a couple visitors a day from a link, and then manage to do link trades with another 50 websites, you could get anywhere from 100 to 1,000 visitors a day.

More importantly, each site you link with is going to grow. That PR3 site you're exchanging links with will easily become a PR5 with average effort. Many will eventually reach PR6, but only the very best will get to PR7.

And what the heck good does Google's Page Rank mean for mutual linking anyways? The better links are one-way links, the kind where people link to you just because they like you. This has more value with ranking high on search engines. Create good content, and you'll get this.

The most important part about linking is the anchor text. It doesn't matter if a PR1 site is linking to you, just make sure they're enclosing the right text within the anchor tags. This is the text that Google is going to optimize your website with.

A PR1 site linking to you with the words "real estate" is worth more than a PR6 site linking to you with "Janet's Properties". And consider that the PR1 site will someday become a PR6 site, hopefully with your link still there.

Labels: PageRank, Reciprocal Linking