How does backlinks exchange work?
The primary method of link generation is a backlink exchange with niche related websites. These exchanges usually following such postscripts as “we recommend,” “our sponsors,” “our partners” or something similar to it. Businesses think that if they link to a source, then this source should obviously link to them. Otherwise, businesses would send out mass emails with the same messages. As well as being a resultative way of link generating, it is also a cheap or even free way to obtain relevant links. However, this link building approach has been beneficial in the past, but not now. Search engines became more intelligent and understood that this kind of incoming links were not truthful votes for a website but rather just a way to a website to boost its rankings. That is why search engines started to give less value to the external links that have labeled as reciprocal. Later reciprocal links have been completely devalued, and many small businesses lost their rankings due to them. This kind of links do not cause severe Google sanctions, but most likely won’t give any value to your optimization campaign. Reciprocal links can bring some value to the sites. However, this value will be than before, and less than from quality backlinks. However, a small value is still value. That is why you should not dismiss reciprocal links altogether. These types of links can provide another benefit - referral traffic. You probably won’t get much referral traffic from reciprocal links, but still, it can be beneficial for your online business.
How to create reciprocal links?
Not all reciprocal links are equally created. Some of them are more valuable than other, depending on the web source you exchange backlinks with. You should only exchange links with industry related web sources. It will look suspicious for search engines if you're based in educational sphere and retail, for instance, books, but exchange links with a travel agency. However, you can find common ground with a website that at least slightly related to your industry. For instance, if a travel agency published an article about the books on adventures theme, then your online books store link will look natural within this content.
A few links from irrelevant sites won’t hurt your reputation, but if you have more, you are risking to make your link profile suspicious for search engines. Too many irrelevant links will most likely look like spam and can raise a red flag regarding the types of link building activities that you are engaging in. In this, all obtained referral traffic will disappear as these reciprocal links will be devalued.
Another reason why you should be extremely careful toward the quality and relevance of the website you are exchanging links with is that you can be penalized for linking out to low-quality websites. If Google detects that you are linking out to what it determines as low-quality spammy web source, your reputation as an authoritative web source can be devastated. It gives a negative signal to the search system, and your site will get into the list of suspicious online sources.
That is why are you unsure about the quality and reputation of web source, do not exchange backlinks with it. It will help you to avoid problems in future. I also advise you to review a website statistics during the last six months as it can show you a current website situation on web (traffic flow, conversion, time users spend on a site per visit, etc.) and what is more important it will show whether a website has been penalized by search engines or not. To obtain these statistical data, you can use Semalt Web Analyzer.
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