A common method used in search engine optimization is the link exchange. It simply means exchanging text or banner links as per mutual agreement between websites so as to get benefit to both parties. The success of a link exchange program depends on the partner website selected, its page rank and the number of visitors to that site. This is also one of the widely exploited SEO tools with the sole intention to get pages ranked high in search results.
Is Link Actually Needed?
A website that gets high traffic and naturally standing top at the search results may not need a link exchange program. Therefore link exchange is highly useful when a website is linked to a high traffic site because chances to click the links and coming to the relevant website are very high in those websites. In fact the visitors appreciate finding related information on the same website if the links to such information is available readily.
How Link Exchange is Done?
Link exchange is usually done by web masters and bloggers through a formal request. The websites seeking link exchange program are listed in link exchange directories or they can be searched separately. When a suitable website for link exchange partnership is selected, it should be linked first to your website and then send an invitation to place your website links in their website. Once the webmaster or site owner agrees to exchange links, the HTML code for linking is sent to them with a request to provide the URL of the linked page.
Common Problems with the Link Exchange:
There is no use in linking an irrelevant web page to your website. Similarly never link a competitor’s web page to your website because you may loss traffic and later possible loss of business. To illustrate further if your website is about plumbing products, you may get more number of visitors if it is linked to websites of plumbing professionals. In that case the visitors to the plumbers website may take active interest to review various plumbing products if the information is available there by navigating further through opening the links.
The partner websites for link exchange should enjoy a high page rank in search engine results. If the linking is done with a website penalized or banned by search engines, your website may even loss the current visitors and may never show up in search results. In the same way all search engines reject websites with a large number of internal links. It is therefore important not to use link farms when selecting a website for link exchange.