Reciprocal Links. You put a link to me on your site. I put a link to you on my site. It does have its uses for SEO, to some degree. One thing is certain, however, and that is the fact that it’s not as beneficial as it was before. Google has stated that those reciprocal links aren’t as valued in their algorithm as one-way links. But that’s not the real problem we want to deal with here. The real trouble with reciprocal links is something else entirely.

The real issue with reciprocal links is the fact that it’s very easy for you to get the short end of the deal. In fact, you could get absolutely nothing out of the trade. There’s a few ways that this can be done without you knowing it. Some examples:

1. The No Follow Link. ‘No Follow’, if you aren’t familiar with the term, is an attribute that can be added to a link that tells Google not to give any SEO credit or benefit to the site being linked to. In other words, all the other guy has to do is add ‘Rel=NoFollow’ to the link to your site and that link is now worthless. You link to them in good faith and, in return, you’re given an empty shell.

2. The Link That Disappears. Other times you’ll actually get a good link in return. For a while. Then, after some time has passed, they take down the link to your site. What’s left? A one-way link from you to them, giving them the full SEO benefits at your expense.

3. The Link On The Page That’s Invisible To Search Engines. One of the tools webmasters use is the Robots.txt file t hat allows them to tell Google which pages to index and which ones not to index. Your reciprocal link partner puts a link to you on a page they’ve told Google not to catalog. Google can’t give you any SEO credit if they can’t actually see and index your link, can they? Now you’re catching on.

What You Can Do To Protect Your SEO Linking

What can you do about this? There is reciprocal link software out there, but they can’t catch every technique used by less honest websites. Still, it can give you the advantage of protecting you from the most common ways. But do you really want to have to monitor these less valuable links constantly?

There’s nothing wrong with exchanging links with sites you truly believe are helpful to your visitors or that have good content. Blogs exchange links often because of the traffic they bring even more than for the SEO benefits. That’s a great reason to exchange links.

However, if you have to keep a constant watch over reciprocal links, it’s probably time to look at other link strategies, especially at acquiring one-way links. Write articles, create solid content, start blogging.

There’s a lot of ways that can get you the SEO advantages you’re seeking than just link trading. And they’ll probably last longer, too. It isn’t necessarily wrong to do reciprocal linking, but your time and energy can probably be better spent on other efforts.