Is anyone as sick as I am of receiving reciprocal linking requests in the form of spam emails?  I read a fantastic article by Mike Banks Valentine of SearchEngineOptimism.com.  Yes the article is a bit controversial, but that’s what makes it a fun read!  The title is: “Reciprocal Linking is Dead”

Here are some excerpts that I thought were excellent:

“I will link, but I will not “swap links” with anyone now. I require content in the form of articles, press releases and news, quotes, testimonials or some form of content.”

“What was it that ruined strict reciprocal links for me? It happened when I received a polite link request from an apparently well-meaning reciprocal link partner and, as always, clicked through to his requested linking URL. I was forwarded immediately to an affiliate program page which this scammer hoped to slip by without my noticing.”

This part was great… he has a form letter that he uses to reply to those spam emails:

“I’d be happy to link to you, but my current method of linking is through articles, not links pages. If you’d like to contribute an article for publication, I’d be glad to link to you through the resource box.

Take a look at those articles I currently use and send your own articles for linking consideration. Be sure to include a resource box with the linking text included within it.

The articles are the only way I link to anyone now. If you don’t have any, consider writing a couple specifically for this purpose. I’m sure you also know the value of distributing well written articles for use by other web sites and ezines.”

I totally plan on using a letter like this to reply to those reciprocal link requests.  Who knows, maybe a motivated spammer will start writing some good content for me!

Lately, I’ve been getting a few link requests that claim to have a 3 way linking strategy that are supposed to guard against reciprocal link penalties and give a decent backlink.  The one problem is that most of the links in the requests are completely unrelated to my services.  People just don’t get it that a link from a casino website to a real estate website isn’t going to help your ranking.  In fact, it may even hurt your ranking if you have too many unnatural links from unrelated sites.

Bottom Line: If you’re going to use reciprocal linking… don’t do it just for the sake of getting more links.  Do it because you think your customers will find value in that link.  And for goodness sake, don’t spam people for reciprocal links. And finally, make sure to only accept links from sites that have content related to yours.

Here are some other helpful links on the subject:

Healthy Website Linking Practices

Threadwatch.org

SEW thread

eZine Article

Links arguing that reciprocal linking is still alive and well:

easywebtutorials.com

1stSearchEngineRankings.com

Related posts:

• Healthy Website Linking Practices
• SEO Quick Tip of the Day —> #12
• SEO Quick Tip of the Day —> #15
• Follow-Up Post on Building Incoming Links to Your Site
• SEO Quick Tip of the Day —> #1