Link Exchange is effective for SEO?

[hoangvu]

Hi friends,

I heard my friends said that now link exchange is not effective for SEO longer, Google doesn't attend with 2 ways link exchange. what do you think ? according to you, link exchange is effective for SEO at this time?

 

[shophia]

Yes link exchange is very effective today. link exchanges are not nearly as effective as they once used to be. Search engines have become smarter and shady linking schemes have become detectable. By participating in link exchange schemes, you bear the risk of getting penalized or even banned by the search engines.

 

[Stephen]

I don't think so it is effective now because Google strictly said that there is no exchange links they want, if anyone do then it will penalize in terms of banned or decreasing ranking.

 

[simojohn258]

Now link exchange is not effective in seo and Google don't like this way to make back links for your site and don't use this way.

 

[Alex Thompson]

Back in the days, I did a whole lot of link exchanges and they did wonders for my search engine rankings. Today however, I dont even think about it. It’s not that I dont think it works. It’s more that other people are not doing it. Plus nowadays, most people dont even respond to link exchange proposals anymore. They just delete the email or mark it as spam.

 

[deven75]

Link exchange only good when we get a contextual link as well as the back link should be on a good pr site and it should be do follow. The link exchange should be 3 way type of link building.

 

[tk_hassan]

Over the recent past we saw that people are not doing link exchanges as it may cause a negative impact on the website's ranking and it is a fact but not every time you do link exchange. It is usually harmful when you do two way link exchanges and google easily identify it and penalize both sites but if you do link 3 way link exchange or 4 way link exchange with quality websites then it is still beneficial.

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

That is absolutely ridiculous. Google does not punish websites for 2-way link exchanges, nor is it harmful.

 

[PTTed]

If you do a limited amount of link exchanges, like less than a handful, you will probably be just fine. If you do it excessively then you probably won't be fine.

Google's response to this question:

The following are examples of link schemes which can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results:

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link

Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking

Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links

Using automated programs or services to create links to your site

Notice the second thing on the list. If you do it excessively, they classify it as a link scheme and it can be detrimental to your website/web page ranking.

Google's Guidelines

 

[Cesar]

As long as they are relevant to you niche and not exchange more than 1 link per site.
Also, is not coming from a paid exchange link service. Link diversification is key.

 

[nesito29]

You can do it, but it's not nearly as effective as it used to be and just like PTTed just said, don't abuse it. The problem with link exchange sites is that most of the sites there are very low quality.

Why would you want thousands of low-quality links when you can get 1 high-quality backlink that would be worth thousands of backlinks, plus it's a lot safer since you are only building a few links as to the other option which gets you thousands (that's just not natural and could get you in trouble).

Hope this helps you and if you use it make sure to get backlinks from sites that are actually worth having links from.

Have an amazing day,
Jonathan N

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

That makes zero sense. You are choosing who to exchange links with, so why in the world would they be low quality?

 

[nesito29]

nesito29

Not at all, it actually makes all the sense in the world. I believe that you are forgetting that not everyone knows what you know, you should remember that assuming that people knows something is the worst thing we can do when teaching something to someone. if don't have the knowledge to do proper research on a domain, people will start exchanging links like crazy.

I'm saying this because I've seen it happen many times.

Things like checking where people are getting their backlinks from, trust flow, domain authority, domain's age, etc. can be very natural things for us to check, but not for everyone.

Now, let me give you an example for "the low-quality sites" part.
Let's say that I just started a new website, it has zero links coming to it, hence no authority and no trust flow. Wouldn't that make links coming from my site low-quality? Most of the people going to link exchanging sites can be considered in this category, and this is what we must check first, but if you don't know, you'll go and start exchanging links blindly.

Which is what I'm trying to explain here.

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

I am not forgetting anything.

You are assuming that link exchange means going to a site where people are requesting link partners. That is just a plain stupid method to find link partners. Only an idiot would go to a link exchange site to look for link partners. It will just be filled with idiot IM'ers like you find on forums.

And no, getting a link from a domain that doesn't have backlinks is not going to automatically be a low quality link. It might not be as strong or powerful of a link, but it is not low quality just because there are no links pointing at it. That is just total misinformation there.

In fact, I have built some fairly effective private networks off of nothing but brand new domains. They are pushing sites into the top 10 all day long in moderately competitive markets.

Checking stuff like DA is not a very good way to evaluate links either. Moz's metrics are terrible. I have thrown nothing but spammy porn and penis enlargement links at domains just to test it and pumped them up to DA's over 50 in every single case.

Domain age is pretty much not a factor either. Wouldn't waste my time looking at that.

 

[seoking]

Link exchange ofcourse effective. If irrelevant link so we have to consider down ranking if relevant so it's will be good for better rank.

 

[nesito29]

I am not forgetting anything.

You are assuming that link exchange means going to a site where people are requesting link partners. That is just a plain stupid method to find link partners. Only an idiot would go to a link exchange site to look for link partners. It will just be filled with idiot IM'ers like you find on forums.

I'm not assuming that is what it means, It's what I've seen like I posted before and yeah, I agree with you, that's a pretty dumb way to do it, but there are sites like that on the web and people doing it that way.

And no, getting a link from a domain that doesn't have backlinks is not going to automatically be a low-quality link. It might not be as strong or powerful of a link, but it is not low quality just because there are no links pointing at it. That is just total misinformation there.

True, it doesn't automatically turn it into a low-quality, but if you consider that a bad backlink or low-quality one is the one coming from an untrusted site it could be considered like that. However, at this stage I believe it's best considered as "neutral".

Checking stuff like DA is not a very good way to evaluate links either. Moz's metrics are terrible. I have thrown nothing but spammy porn and penis enlargement links at domains just to test it and pumped them up to DA's over 50 in every single case.

Unfortunately DA can be easily manipulated like you just mentioned and I wouldn't rely on it, but it's always nice to see more metrics (not very trustworthy but still, another metric), the one that is most trusted right now is trust flow wich is why I mentioned it.

Domain age is pretty much not a factor either. Wouldn't waste my time looking at that.

I agree that it is really not a factor, but domain age would be mainly to determine how long has that site been around and if it could be trusted. After all there would be an archive backing this up, and what I check is the archive. I always check to see if the site has been a PBN before, casino or porn site (I stay away from these because they tend to be spammy in some way).

There are many ways to approach this and many ways to do SEO so these kind of talks are always good to have

 

[HypnPro]

I've been reading a lot on this subject. At first I thought it was something that would be punished. Then I noticed that many of the websites that I am competing with for Google ranking have very low MOZ Page and Domain ranking and are totally static with no new content yet somehow occupy positions 1-5 on Google. The only thing I can find that may account for this is their link exchanges.
I have also read that limited link exchanges with relevant sites can be helpful. So, as a hypnotherapist, I would want to exchange links with other mental health websites and I plan on limiting that to perhaps 20 or 30 at most... in addition I have plenty of outbound links to .edu and .gov and other major sites on the same webpage.
I can't say if this is the right thing to do but that's what I am thinking at this point of my learning.

 

[dafthost]

Now link exchange is not effective in seo and Google don't like this way to make back links for your site and don't use this way.