Reciprocal Links With Unrelated Websites Who Email You Out Of The Blue? No Thanks.
Blurb by Shaun Anderson (Hobo) -
Another question I get asked daily it seems so I thought a blog post I could point folks at was called for.
Clients send me unsolicited emails from companies that ask for “reciprocal links between their site and yours”, usually because it will “improve search engine rankings” for both websites.
I can tell you I usually ignore all reciprocal link exchange requests via unsolicited emails and recommend you do to.
I spend my time looking for quality links and believe me, I’ve not found ANY in any email.
It’s actually against Google TOS to do this type of reciprocal link building:
Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include……
- Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
Now I suppose that’s rich advice coming from a seo (whose supposed to be manipulating search engines if you listen to some of the bollocks some big name web designers linkbait with these days), but reciprocal link exchanges like the one I mention above offer NO REAL SEO benefit to YOUR site (especially when they are on link partner pages) and Google says it might NEGATIVELY impact your rankings. So why manipulate in this amateur manner?
IF YOU TAKE A SECOND AND VISUALISE in your head the link scheme in place and the relationship between pages via links in the reciprocal links hub scenario, you can see how easy it is to do so. Google can probably compute and identify that one a lot faster than you can its so obvious.
99.9% of the time I IGNORE ALL SPAM EMAILS ASKING FOR RECIPROCAL LINKS especially if they are from some company who sells something totally unrelated to my site. I honestly can’t even remember the 0.1% I’ve responded to but I assume I did at least once back in the day – I know I asked for them when I started out 10 years ago but that’s when recip linking was of some use.
Note – Usually they will put your link on a “useful links” page. Now, Google hates these kinds of pages because they are just there to manipulate rankings. A useful links page out to unrelated sites on a low quality domain is just spam to Google and more often or not the pages your links are on will just be ignored by Google so there is no point getting a link from these pages.
Unrelated Sites
- Should you reciprocate links with irrelevant unrelated websites? NO – It’s a waste of time and possibly damaging.
- Should you link out to other unrelated sites at any other time? OF COURSE YOU SHOULD BUT NOT JUST TO MANIPULATE SEARCH RANKINGS. If the page is relevant to an article on your site, then it’s a good link. These types of links are the currency of the web!
- Should you worry if unrelated sites link to you? Of course NOT.
Linking is the foundation of the web, without links, there would be no web as we know it, no Google even, so never be scared of linking to good sites or pages – in fact, Google WANTS or at least EXPECTS you to do this and will thank you for it at some level…. probably. Bear in mind reciprocal links with a website tell google your two sites are related. Do you want that?
Related Sites
- Should You Reciprocate Links Related Websites? Perhaps, but ideally not on “usful links” pages, unless the page itself only links out to useful related sites. Here’s a good example of a useful links page I don’t mind linking to. But then, a seo can tell this sort of thing I suppose.
But if your INTENT is to SCREW with Google, Google might very well SCREW with you, depending on the vary nature of your intent, or the intent of others you now associate yourself with because of their intent and that reciprocal link you did.
Should You Ask For Reciprocal Links?
Of course, you should ALWAYS be ASKING for links. just not reciprocal links. One-way links are better for search engines though as they indicate editorially approved links from other sites, to yours. And that’s the best kind of links you can get.
I am working with a client at the moment in a global market who makes something amazing a lot of blue chip companies pay a lot of money for. Their website has a very poor link profile. We are currently asking for them to contact all these big brand companies and ask them for a link on their websites to the client website because this COULD NEVER HURT ANY OF THE SITES INVOLVED and links from these big brand websites who have bought their products – ie testimonial links from REAL sites that dont just link to anybody, are good quality links.
We’ll probably reciprocate those links (if they ask us) but only AFTER Google sees the big brand sites linking to us first (thats a habit) – I use a few methods to ensure this is the case. The aim is to get the BRAND websites to VOTE for our site FIRST, so OUR search engine rankings improve, because Google now TRUSTS our site because of these new quality links on sites it already trusts. The brand websites don’t need our links for search enigne purposes – all we need to ensure is we are linking out to their sites in a more appropriate manner that is probably more useful to them….
I think all Brand managers would like another good-news-page in the SERPS, so creating a case study for their brand, on your website, is probably better than a link on a links page google will probably eventually ignore. So we’ll probably do that.
This post is a lot longer than I thought it would be.
PS I used the very cool http://www.wordle.net/create to create the cool text image on this page.
We've recently updated our comments policy and increased the number of comments a visitor has to make to get seo friendly links in comment signatures to reward long term readers and make it a bit harder for dofollow spammers ;) - I told you dofollow spamming wasn't a long term strategy....
I get these emails all the time and very occasionally the link is worth having – but my trick is to reciprocate willingly and then a day or two later just add “nofollow” to the outgoing link.
You can guarantee it’s never going to be checked and hey presto – i have a one-way link!
Of course I don’t just do this with any site that emails me – I make sure they’re relevant and spam is minimal.
I hate link building but then that is why I should learn more about it. I think most of the people in online industry hates this part of the job.
[...] and already given me a few tips). It's a kind of no nonsense appraisal of reciprocal linking etc Reciprocal Links With Unrelated Websites Who Email You Out Of The Blue? No Thanks. | Hobo Would love to hear others thoughts – do you agree/disagree? __________________ Barry Hynd [...]
“The aim is to get the BRAND websites to VOTE for our site FIRST, so OUR search engine rankings improve, because Google now TRUSTS our site because of these new quality links on sites it already trusts”… I didn’t know this. Thanks a lot.
I think this is the only situation I would accept a link exchange.
I remember a client of mine when he came for seo. When we examined his site after a while, in one “links” page we see craploads of reciprocal links to some directories that requires you to link to them. And most of them are crappy directories.
Before examining, the guy was asking if any of the inbound links will hurt his site at all. People somehow care more about the people that links to them more than the people they link to…
P.S.: I’ll try wordle, it looks cool
I write the Northern California Hiking Trails blog and I get several link requests a month.
I ignore all the ones from some so-called SEO companies that ask me to link to their client’s site, and then they’ll link to me.
I have honored some requests from people who have blogs or legit websites that deal with hiking in Northern California. Lately I’ve been telling them not to link back to me, thinking they can then take better advantage of my PR3 link.
Whats your optinion on 3 or even 4 way links? Pretty hard for G to detect in my opinion. Also if you think about the nature of some of the smaller communities on the web they all link back and forth to each other all the time, i doubt it does them much harm.
P
I know of several small charitable websites that have nothing but reciprocal links and on links pages. Their link profiles are awful in the SEO sense. They link reciprocally to their sponsors. These same sponsors have nothing other than reciprocal links forming their links profile – again on links pages.
Have any of them been penalised by Google? No! Have they been banned? No! Do they rank highly for their respective keyphrases? Yes!
So what does that say about Google’s reciprocal linking TOS? It’s totally ambigous and subjective.
Matt Cutts even says so himself…
“The limits of reciprocal linking are purposely left ambiguous which means either there is no clear number by policy or algo to how many recips you can have, it is hard to put a number to it because it occurs naturally, and/or the limits are left to the judgement of individual hand checkers, i.e. Google reserves editorial discretion when performing a hand check.”
There are dozens of examples of small websites that do nothing but reciprocal linking and probably none of them have ever had a Google penalty.
I have seen numerous sites that have nothing but reciprocal link profiles and I’m absolutely sure you as an SEO have seen the same and none of them have suffered in any way.
Yet you tell people not to link reciprocally?
I’m obviously not going to publicise these sites here or the charities above as no doubt some weirdo will submit a report to Google.
Should people link reciprocally – of course they should and they should have no fear about doing it or worry about Google panalties. If those linking reciprocally are doing it on a scale to game Google then it will become clear they are at the capers and it will be spotted and it’s for Google to decide whether it’s spam.
It’s certainly not for you to tell people not to do it.
A link is a link no matter what and a link has some value regardless of Google’s TOS.
Nice comment Sandy but I am not saying people should not reciprocate links – for instance reciprocal links are a natural part of the web – http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/seo-blog/index.php/should-i-avoid-reciprocal -links/ – I’m trying to say I dont reciprocate links with MOST unrelated sites (and some related sites) who email me out of the blue.
Typically, these sites are low quality, unrelated to my theme, and I know the link I give THEM is a lot more VALUABLE than the Links they give me (and could possibly damage things if you listen to Google) – so why would I bother?
The charity sites linking together you mention. I don’t imagine there’s much intent to screw Google too much in that lot.
Maybe it’s because I work in seo. I see SO MANY reciprocal link request emails and I sometimes look at the site and wonder – WHY ON EARTH WOULD I WANT TO LINK TO THIS CRUD – the site’s crap, it’s link profile is spammy EASY TO GET links – and they want me to associate my site with it.
The irony is of course the seo community is ALL RECIPROCAL LINKS. I never worry about reciprocating links between relevant sites, and sites with more domain authority than I have.
I’ve been engaged in discussion with SEOs on forums where the argument was about whether or not a high authority, high PR link from an unrelated site was better than a context relevant link from a not so authoratitive site. I’d go with relevance, I’m interested to know what you think about this?
I know it’s not exactly on topic but if we assume that recip linking is a no no then I hope you won’t mind me asking a Q about link quality.
Rich
First off, the concept of “link exchanges” existed before Google even existed, so who are they to tell webmasters that “link schemes” are against their TOS?
The author of this article needs to get off Google’s lap, Google is not God, Google did not invent the Internet, and anyone who optimizes only for Google, or who gets 80% of their traffic through Google, is a fool, because Google can “Google slap” them over night, and what do they have? Nothing!
My online business only gets 25% of our traffic through Google, and we will keep it that way. Google is in business to make money, Google wants the entire world to search for information through THEIR index, so common sense would dictate that “link schemes” are against their TOS.
A huge percentage of our monthly traffic comes from our “link partners,” and these sites actually COMPETE with Google, because Google wants webmasters dependent on THEM and they want as many people as possible using their index, so to them lots of links is a threat. This is why they are against it, the real reason.
I would rather have 5,000 back links to my site that each send me a single visitor a day then to get 80% of my traffic through Google, risking my business because if we are Google slapped we could be wiped out.
I too see so many reciprocal links on a daily basis that it’s frightening.(Yes I too am an SEO but I’m not publicity seeker hence my pen name)
I don’t however ignore them and actually take the time to go through them. Why? Because whilst they may “appear” to have no use for our site – they may well have use for any of our clients. Even amongst these there are diamonds which are worth the effort and are saved for a rainy day.
Show me a gold prospector that doesn’t sift through all the crap to find those tiny little nuggets. Put all these little nuggets together and you’ve got something a lot more valuable.
As an example – I linked reciprocally to an unrelated site simply because the guy took time to write something that caught my imagination. He also posted a good comment on our blog and this earned him his link by way of thanks. In return, the guy linked back to us from 3 different sites without being asked. Similar things have happened on many occasions.
Since – the guy has been a good online buddy and we’ve been happy to give him advice for free on his projects. He links to us from sites without being asked. Will Google penalise us for this?
They have no way of knowing why someone would exchange a link. Are they party to conversations we have with people? Do they know that we might have met a client at a conference and decided to link to them reciprocally because we became friends?
Who we or any website links to is our business and quite frankly Google have no right to interfere or play God on the internet – algorithmically or “by hand”.
IMO far too many SEO’s are peddling black and white opinions about reciprocal links on the back of interprettions of Matt “Mr Ambiguity” Cutts’ latest blog diatribe. He seems to change his mind more than a woman on recip linking and lets not get started on nofollow.
This does little to help people and most of the time scares some genuinely decent website owners shitless about linking.
To be honest – I genuinely wish the man [cutts] would go away because he does little good for the general website owner populus. He creates confusion and debate which can’t be proven either way. He’s an employee of a huge corporation that runs his own personal blog. What would happen if he moved to another company? Would Google pull his blog? Would all Google’s secrtes come out? Lots of what ifs…but fact remains that one man single handedly causes more confusion about how to rank on Google than is healthy and we would all be better off if he went away and left Google to leave guidelines that are updated on a regular basis – so that we all knew where we stand.
What other corporations put official statements out through a blog mouthpiece?
Opinion is ambiguous, subjective and destructive. Google have themselves to blame for putting Cutts out there to front all this opinion and stir up as much controversy as possible.
Like I said a link is a link is a link and all links have value.
Hey Sandy thanks for the comment hopefully you will use your real email so I can put a name to you
As you probably know yourself, Matt Cutts isn’t there to help your site rank better. He’s there to stop you spamming Google.
Sandy one more thought:
“Like I said a link is a link is a link and all links have value.”
…even if it is on a page with 100 other links that isn’t in Google’s index (but Google has crawled in the past?).
I like to put work into getting links on pages that stay in Google’s main results – old habit.
You’re welcome for the post Shaun,
I’m happy with my pen name mate and I’m not keen on giving my email address out.
“As you probably know yourself, Matt Cutts isn’t there to help your site rank better. He’s there to stop you spamming Google.”
Actually that’s not strictly true. In many interviews with himself he regularly states that he “advises the public on how to get better website visibility in Google”
I genuinely do believe that he does more harm than good. I’ve been in SEO for a LONG time and I’ve seen and watched the effects of Cutts. Moreso his postings as “Googleguy” on the likes of SEW, SEOChat, Digitalpoint etc.
The point is that every time Cutts farts, the whole world hangs on every word he says, sucks up and licks his arse in the hope of earning a link from his blog.
I disagree that a mouthpiece (and an attention seeker) like Cutts should be representing a global corporation and playing god with the livelihoods of genuine business people – be they professional SEOs or people doing SEO on their own websites.
Whenever he writes a post on his blog or appears smiling in front of the cameras his “wisdom” gets dissected and put back together by the fame whore SEO glitterati. The glitterati then fall over each other trying to be the first to write the “real truth” behind cutts information (or disinformation) then this starts a whole big cavalcade of sheep who follow suit in the vein hope of climbing the tree.
How many other global corporations let one man singlehandedly broadcast information and direction like this? None that I know of.
What if Matt Cutts took the huff with Google and went to Yahoo for example? No one ever believed there would be a banking crisis did they?
Matt Cutts – if you watch/read his early stuff you will notice was helpful to an extent. Better when he was punting out disinformation anonymously on the forums. In the past 3-4 years hwoever, his public persona and sucking upo to the cameras is sickening. It’s getting to David Beckham like frenzy amongst SEOs somethimes – the haircuts etc. I mean who really cares?
It’s nothing personal against Cutts per se, it’s just that I do not believe it is healthy for a mouthpiece to represent a corporation as large as Google. His advices creates division and confusion accross the worlds. Companies are in fear of doing simple things like reciprocal linking as a result of his advice and that is WRONG! But then again, Google (and Cutts) love the attention, debate and controversy his advice creates. It earns them column inches, search clecks, etc, etc etc.
As one commenter above said – there are other search engines and not everything is about Google. Hence when I say a “link is a link is a link”.
Addressing the point about 100+ outgoing links. I have no problem with this at all. I’ve seen new clients with X hundred outgoing links from their pages, x hundred reciprocals bewteen sites and they have had absolutely nothing happen to them whatseoever. They have lots of love from Yahoo, Bing, Ask etc and there’s no doubt that these links have value.
Links are links and they all have value. 100 no follow links from 100 blogs for example – I’ve seen clients who have links like this to them and they never even knew it. Yet…the traffic alone they get is worthy of sales, enquires and much more. So a link is a link is a link – and it has value.
PS – Happy Easter
@sandy
You said “Actually that’s not strictly true. In many interviews with himself he regularly states that he “advises the public on how to get better website visibility in Google”
Actually it is true, he’s the head of the anti spam team after all. When he gives advice on how to ‘increase visibility’ he’s basically telling us the way to get indexed that Google consider acceptable and it’s nothign to do with ranking well. Whether you think he’s an ‘attention seeker’ or not is pretty irrelevant, he’s Google’s official conduit to the public, when he talks you should listen because they always have a reason for telling us anything, and it’s always for their own benefit. If you can figure out what they want, you can do SEO.
I think that Google are currently engaged in a spin campaign to change what SEO actually means. I understand SEO to be increasing the volume and quality of traffic to a website from the search engines but Google dont’ want that unless that increase is happening naturally because you have a useful resource for them to show to their users. They put out an ‘SEO’ guide but if you read it mentions nothing about off-page factors and is simply instruction on how to build a search engine friendly page, something any competent webmaster should be doing already anyway.
They’re trying to redefine SEO to stop people trying to manipulate the index. you should pay more attention to MC Sandy. You don’t have to like him to be able to use what he says.
“Whenever he writes a post on his blog or appears smiling in front of the cameras his “wisdom” gets dissected and put back together by the fame whore SEO glitterati.” – wow, you’ve really got a case for this guy haven’t you. Think about this, Google are far from stupid, there’s a reason that they employ him and it’s very simple to work out. They get what they want by telling us what they want. Easy huh.
“Links are links and they all have value.” – not from an SEO point of view Sandy and this is an SEO blog.
Richard
@richard
You’ll be his biggest fan then!
Don’t know how long you’ve been in the game or the extent of your experience but your points show a lack of.
He has been quoted as saying he advises on “how to get better visibility in Google”. This is in ADDITION to his role as head of spam!
Cutts talks about ranking all the time, how to get links, good links, bad links, forum links, blog comment links, rss content etc – so you’re talking through a hole when you say he doesn’t.
Go and do some research. Read forums – and the opinions of him from a lot of respected SEOs. Search for Googleguy and read through some of his posts. Look at his interviews on video, blog posts and so on. He’s changed his tune more times than I’ve had hot dinners – and that is the whole point – the confusion he causes. Take no follow for example. How many times has he sang a different tune on that single aspect?
Yes he’s a publicity/attention seeker. Ask anyone who has never heard of him – a client for example. Almost unanimously, any time I’ve ever sent a video link of Cutts explaining something to a client, the clients response is “boy does he love himself”.
By the way – I already said I have nothing against the guy personally.
Google don’t need cutts at all. They survived without his public presence and in my experience things were a LOT LOT LOT…..clearer.
Google can quite easily put what’s right and what’s wrong down in black and white.
“Links are links and they all have value.” – not from an SEO point of view Sandy and this is an SEO blog.
YES from an SEO point of view! SEO does not just mean Google by the way. SEO applies to ALL search engines. You stick to Google Engine Optimisation and see how far you get.
Sandy – you do know I talk about Google SEO rather than Yahoo SEO or Bing SEO so you have to remember I discuss what I see and how it impacts in Google.
Others might focus on the other engines, but generally speaking, I concentrate on SEO for Google, and have done for years. I’m more interested in which strategies WORK rather than get you FILTERED or BANNED, too, as I think some sites can get away with things and others cannot.
Talking search engines out of the mix? Reciprocal linking was a wonderful thing. I hear Yahoo doesn’t mind it, that much, and Bing, like Google, has spouted off the “intent” card in it’s evaluation.
Google is in the mix however, and I’m not some lap-dog for Google. I see TONS of recip links with little-to-no apparent value on “useful links” pages (ultimately, it will depend on if the site is a real site or not, and the company has done “something” decent online to generate some decent links).
For me, I generally ignore reciprocal link request emails. On the whole, they originate from very poor sites built upon a raft of low quality, devalued links. On a lot of occasions, they eminate from SPAMMY sites too, sometimes up to total no good.
I got one today – I might publish it. Utter sh*te site – guys been doing it for years – there’s complaints in the SERPS about him, from folks I know.
PS – I still don’t think Matt Cuts has helped the SEO community that much, other to confirm what folks like myself have observed.
I still think he’s there to stop you spamming Google – primarily.
Thanks for the debate guys and keeping it intelligent
One of the reasons I blog is so I don’t need to get involved with morons in forums who don’t have a &^%ing clue but are intent on getting their post count up…