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Link Swapping Killing Websites

It’s so refreshing to see this sentiment from other webmasters more often lately! Michael Cheney is one of a growing number of people who are starting to agree with me that the majority of websites have gone completely mad about linking. I’m happy to see some sense being talked after so long in absolute linking psychosis. In fact, I’d love to hear from others with innovative linking strategies to add to this discussion. Please join and post your responses if you have suggestions. I’ve recently reported from the WebMasterWorld.com World of Search Conference in Las Vegas, on the great effects of press relases as a link building method. I’ve written before about using testimonials as a linking strategy. Writing and distributing articles for use in ezines and newsletters is another well known technique and one I’ve used myself to gain wide exposure for a half dozen of my own sites and more recently, those of my clients. I’ve long contended that “reciprocal links” are dead and wish the rest of the webmasters who constantly email me asking for links would read my articles on web issues and send me theirs to use and link to them through the resource box, instead of asking for reciprocal links from me. I WON’T do it! PLEASE DON’T ASK!

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • www.acescafe.com March 7, 2006, 9:40 pm

    There is great value in quality link swaps. Discrediting them as bunk and using at the same time (even through ezine articles) is what some would call hypocritical. Mr. Cheney’s article is riddled with opinions, appears thrown together and does not even mention Google’s Guidelines for Webmasters. On this page (http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html) the very first thing to do after your site is ready is to “have relevant sites link to yours.” Any good webmaster would know that quality link swaps are part of an overall great SEO campaign.

  • RealitySEO March 8, 2006, 10:39 am

    Sorry AcesCafe, I disagree strenuously. 😉

    I’ve even started to respond to link swap requests at my sites by sending a standard boilerplate reply to those requesting link swaps.

    My linking policy is to link only to those who provide content for my site. If you would like to contribute an article, case study or relevant text content for Website101, I’d be happy to consider using it and link to you through a resource box at the end of it.

    Likewise, I’d prefer that you use one of my articles at your site and link back to me through my resource box, rather than a simple link swap. You can find a wide selection of articles to use at my article archive for a list of available articles.

    If you would like to know more about my linking policy, please read this article.

    Regards,

    Mike Banks Valentine
    562-572-9702 Direct
    http://WebSite101.com
    http://Publish101.com
    http://SEOptimism.com
    http://RealitySEO.com
    http://PrivacyNotes.com