Common Sense Link Exchange

Creating a simple links page to exchange links for the purpose of higher search engine ranking is a bad idea. Now you're probably saying to yourself why else would I make a links page? The answer is simple. You want to offer your visitors good quality content. Following this line of logic will help you go a lot farther in rankings and traffic than just throwing a links page together.

You see, search engines, especially Google, are trying their best to only rank sites that have quality content in a specific area. When you throw together a links page that has 150 links ranging from household goods to zoos in Australia on a single page, you have just created a worthless page to a search engine because you just created a worthless page to a web visitor. No one is going to take the time to sort through all those links in the slight chance that there could be something of value to them.

Let's say your trading links with someone. Ask yourself, "If there was no such thing as a search engine, would anybody find my site on this links page?". If the answer is no, you probably don't want to exchange links. You're only wasting your time. That's why so many webmasters today barely read link request emails anymore. I've gotten a link on a related site that sometimes equals as much traffic as a single search on Google for that topic, so it is important where the link is located. I expect no traffic if my movie poster site is stuck somewhere between car insurance and real estate sales amidst 100 other links. However, if the page is entitled posters and every link on the page is related to posters and art or movies then I can expect some visitors coming from that site.

The best way to go is to make a links page that offers sites that are similar to your own site's content, and don't put 150 sites on one page with a title tag that says the exact same thing as your homepage. If you plan to list hundreds of site links, put them into categories. For example if your site is about cars or anything to do with the automotive industry, then you have a gold mine of content ready to mine and tons of sites that can and will exchange links with you - if you have a good directory. You should categorize your links section into cars, trucks, automotive parts, racing, etc. and each category breaks down into more sub-categories like automotive parts leads to tires, brakes, and on and on. Before you know it you've got a great addition to your site that your visitors will like to visit, and others will want to be listed on. The search engines will even list your links pages, and every listing helps.

I turn down sites every day because it's a complete waste of time to get their listing. Linking to them could even harm my rankings. Sites that have 25 pages of links in no other order than alphabetical or numerical are not going to help you. They can only hurt. Links sections or directories should have a logical categorization with a descriptive title tag at the top. Title tags that run on forever and have no keywords relating to the page's content are worthless. Some people think they are doing great by repeating their company name and product over and over again, but it makes the page less useful to search engines and web visitors.

It seems more and more that the organized directory is dying out. New webmasters come and go without knowing the tricks of the trade, while search engines are getting more strict on just about everything. You must organize your directory and link only to sites that relate to yours or you are wasting your time and the time of those that you want to exchange links with.

The author has been a webmaster for over 6 years. Check out webmaster tips for more tips from the author.

In The News:


pen paper and inkwell


cat break through


The Basics of Asking for a Reciprocal Link

Asking another webmaster for a reciprocal link is standard practice... Read More

Links Exchange ? a Hazardous Business?

So we gather in all the relevant information we can... Read More

How to Increase Web Site Visitors For Relevant Terms Using Your Less Relevant Listings

Completely by accident and through no effort of my own,... Read More

10 Highly Effective Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website

There are many ways to promote your website for free... Read More

Build Your Inbound Site Links Without Requesting Reciprocal Links

A funny thing happened to me three months ago. I... Read More

How To Drive Traffic To Your Website

How can you have effective results in major search engines?... Read More

How to Quickly Gain Traffic to Your New Web Site

Have you spent a lot of money on advertising with... Read More

Web Site Marketing: Discover 10 Sneaky Ways To Prolong Your Visitors Stay At Your Website

The longer your website visitors stay, the more they will... Read More

How To Get At Least 50 Visitors A Day Free

How To Get At Least 50 Visitors A Day Free!Every... Read More

Free Traffic Course - Day 7

When you work with web site traffic, you must have... Read More

Generating Traffic On A Budget

Most webmasters keep their prized web traffic generating systems to... Read More

The Hidden Traffic Strategy That Skyrockets Your Profits

If you agree that traffic is the true currency of... Read More

Create Top Sites To Increase Your Traffic

You have a website, beautiful in design and unique in... Read More

10 Tips on How to Increase Your Website Traffic

Not so long ago I had read an article about... Read More

Get More Customers ? With Less Work!

A lot of website owners work tirelessly at increasing their... Read More

Reciprocal Link Exchange Rampup - Winning the Link Popularity Contest

Getting links to your website all over the Internet is... Read More

Free Traffic Course - Day 3

This is the 3rd day of "Free Traffic Course".This day... Read More

Traffic Generation: The Number One Skill That Will Generate Cash Flow (Part 1 of 3)

If you're feeling a bit of confusion and frustration about... Read More

Reciprocal Linking

Do not pay anyone or any service to submit your... Read More

How To Triple Your Banner Click-Through-Rates

Have you noticed that your banner ads rarely get clicked... Read More

How to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Everyone wants to know the big secret to driving traffic... Read More

Get Traffic Soon and Surge Ahead or Youll Get Lost in the Internet Wilderness.

Getting Traffic or more precisely Targeted Traffic to your website... Read More

Three Way Links, The Silver Bullet of Inbound links

I am not going to bore you by loading this... Read More

The Best Traffic Secret I Ever Learned

If you could get high quality traffic that would grow... Read More

A Million Visitors

Recently I came across a web site with the heading... Read More

12 Free Ways to Cause Traffic at Your Site

There are many easy ways to get your name out... Read More

Youre Not Linking, TheyNe Cot coming!

Large companies tend to spend huge amount of money on... Read More

Website Add-Ons That Can Catapult Your Web Traffic!

1. Add a message board to your web site. People... Read More

How to Get Traffic

The future of online business rest in one word: traffic.... Read More

Traffic Secrets - Secrets of the Guaranteed Traffic Companies Exposed

Our Story A few years ago, we were struggling... Read More

Quality Traffic & Website Promotion Helps Websites Grow

Quality traffic, website promotion and product and service advertisement is... Read More

Link Exchange: Good for Ranking and Internet Presence

To improve our website ranking and internet presence we need... Read More

The Power of Link Popularity

Getting quality links to your site from related web resources... Read More