seoance

First, let’s face the fact. Reciprocal linking no longer ranks high on must-do list for most search specialists. The reasons are manifold. Chief among them are as under:

1. Search engines are known not to favor ‘plain reciprocal linking’ between sites because they do not enhance the value of the links in their eyes. Does this mean SEs penalize sites that resort to directory-style reciprocal linking? May be not, but there is no value addition either.
2. There has been too much abuse of the concept of reciprocal linking, and it is still not uncommon to find reciprocal links among completely disparate sites. Clearly, it is like waving red flags to search engines.
3. As a result of (1) and (2), most webmasters nowadays do not agree for plain reciprocal linking any longer.

However, there have been instances where website owners take recourse to ‘turnkey’ reciprocal linking. What happens is that site A links to B, B to C, C to D, and lastly D to A. Since no 2 sites link directly with each other, there’s a belief that this works.

Nothing can be farther from truth. It is possible for search engines to easily ferret out such covert understanding, and in fact are not favored either.

With that as backdrop, are there no way for reciprocal linking that can be made to work in your favor? The answer is ‘yes’, and the trick too is rather simple, but to make it work needs some planning and hard work. Let’s look at the following example. Say it’s an article about content writing, and the paragraph below is a part of that.

Fact is, if you need to offer a product or service, you have to write a powerful ad that can convince your customers. Writing an effective sales copy is not anyone’s cup of tea. Which means unless you hire an expert who has experience in relevant [link starts]content writing[link ends], you stand less and less chance to succeed in your objective.

Here the phrase ‘content writing’ is used as an anchor text to provide link pointing to a site of your choice. Now if this site too links back to your site through an anchor text of your choice in an article like above, it will be a classic case of reciprocal linking without rubbing SEs the wrong way. Since there is some amount of value addition at either end, the SEs are not likely to object.

However, though the trick appears simple enough, it is equally, if not more, hard to put it in practice. After all, how many reciprocal links can you generate this way? It’s not only that you need to write contents relevant to your site that can refer to your potential link-partners’ sites, they also need to do same. Not many would care for that trouble.

But, are not there exceptions? Yes, John Chow for one. He offers to link to your blog if you review his blog (John Chow Dot Com). Yet, all said and done, anchor-text reciprocal linking is a tough call indeed.

Okay, reciprocal linking is now considered as passe, but the need still lingers on. If you’re still with me, let’s venture into how you can find your potential link partners. Here are some tools and options.

Partha Bhattacharya, author of this article, reciprocal linking, owns and runs Words2Content blog that focuses on writing, blogging and optimizing web contents. When time permits, he also writes at Kolkata Musing, a blog on the city of Kolkata in India where he lives.

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