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Reciprocal Link Morticians Here we go again, folks. The reciprocal link morticians are writing the obituaries again. Singing their dirges. Digging the graves. Holding funerals. This has happened with every Google update over the last several years. The SEO world is once again filled with "reciprocal links are dead" babble. If you want to see them, simply put "reciprocal linking dead" into a search box and see what pops up. Here are just few examples of articles from SEO
advisors who disparage the practice of reciprocal linking: There are plenty more, if you look... The common thread here is that none of these articles present any definitive proof whatsoever. One makes a lame attmept to justify their position by looking at a handful of their own websites. Most are just based on opinion and what is typically called "common wisdom". I guess if something is repeated enough times, it becomes widely-believed by some, regardless of the facts It's all very predictable, and it's an old, worn-out routine. In all of these pronouncements there is never any factual data to support them. Simply innuendo and some passing observations that this must be the "big one" for reciprocal links. Maybe what they are not telling their readers is that there were other factors at play with sites that got downgraded, so they simply chose reciprocal linking as the "cause". We look at actual search results for hundreds of sites. Here's what we have seen. The vast majority of sites that continue to hold top place positions for their main keywords rely on reciprocal links for much of their link popularity. What's more, many of the sites that were displaced in Google were replaced by sites that use...reciprocal links!!! The reciprocal linkers are still right there, at the top. Certainly, links seem to have played a role in this update. Raw linking games got hit pretty hard. But subject relevant, non-gamesmanship reciprocal linking is still a very valid method of promoting a website. There are several very good reasons why Google may not want to penalize legitimate reciprocal linking. But that's another article for another day. The noise out there right now is massive. Everyone is
an expert, regardless of their experience or perspective. Don't take my word for
it, or theirs. Just look at real Google search results, lots of them, before jumping
to conclusions and buying into these flimsy arguments.
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