Don’t Hate on Reciprocal Links (No, seriously!)

The fact that link building is now the critical success factor in search engine optimization has caused most of us to hone in one aspect of link building–link popularity–and forget the other great benefits of incoming links, namely, branding and targeted direct traffic.

A reader commented on one of my earlier posts where I blasted Arelis. I should have been more clear: I think building on-topic reciprocal links is a great marketing method.

A marketing method that is not so great is building thousands of off-topic reciprocal links using automated software. This method does still give decent results in Google sometimes, although its days are probably numbered. And of course, it’s this type of spammy link building that has given reciprocal links a bad name.

That said, on-topic reciprocal links often give targeted traffic than converts well, as well as positive branding (a ‘perceived endorsement’ from the linking site). And yes, gentle reader, they do have an effect on your SEO. I think Randfish over at SEOmoz said it well:

Why is this issue still around nearly 10 years after it first became and Internet marketing tactic?
The answer is that some reciprocal links can and do help. The
reasons are very simple – search engines are seeking authoritative,
on-topic links and just because they recognize that CNN links to NASA
and NASA links to CNN doesn’t mean that the link should be devalued… but having all your links from other sites’ off-topic, reciprocal link collections pages may not help nearly as much.

How do the whitehats put it? Do what’s best for the user, and let the search engines figure it out. Apply that maxim to reciprocal linking and it’s not nearly so confusing.