May 1st, 2007
Reciprocal Linking
Matt Cutts recently wrote a post where he talked about reciprocal linking. The jest of the post was that reciprocal linking wasn’t bad depending on how you do it, but as time goes on, it’s definitely given less weight in the search engines.
Should you do any reciprocal linking then? I would say this: Reciprocal linking can still be a good form of link building as long as each of those links are relevant links for your site and your site visitors. If you have a fly fishing site, you may find it relevant for your visitors to include a link to a site that sells fly rods (if yours doesn’t), whereas it would be hard for the search engines and your visitors to find the relevancy in linking to a gambling site.
The keyword here is relevant. The search engines will never fault you for trying to make your site more friendly or more easy for your site visitors. Keep things relevant and you will always be in line with what the search engines are looking for.