BreakingOut.NET

Once you’ve been blogging for a while, chances are you’ll start receiving mails from bloggers and website operators, asking you if you’d like to exchange links with them.

I’ve been getting more and more of these requests myself in recent months.

Mostly for BreakingOut.NET but there have also been requests for a couple of other sites that I run.

Basically what people are striving to do here is to increase the number of links back to their site from elsewhere on the Web. These are known as backlinks.

So why might someone want to do this?

What is a backlink?

The search engines – and notably Google, use “link popularity”, that is, the number of links- and the “quality” of those links, there are out on the web that point to a page, to help it rank the relevance of sites.

The more relevant links that point to your site, the higher your page rank is likely to be. In turn, the more likely it will be that your site will appear on the first page of Google’s search results when someone types in a keyword that relates to your site. And this translates into more traffic to your site.

So what everyone with a website is looking for is more backlinks. These are the key to getting noticed on the Web and gaining more traffic.

BREAKINGOUT.NET’s SPONSOR:

You scrub my back – and I’ll scrub yours

The Web of course is based around the concept of linking to other sites. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s how the Web works. Web links are basically a good thing. In the right context.

The idea of a link exchange is that one site offers to link to another site in return for a reciprocal link pointing back to it’s own site.

Both website owners do each other a favour. It sounds like a reasonable request that can surely only have benefits for both parties. You scrub my back and I scrub yours. It seems very simple. And indeed it is.

The problems with link exchanges

The trouble is that link exchanges are a dubious method of trying to build traffic. For a number of reasons.

Firstly, link exchange backlinks aim to hoodwink the search engines. Google and other search engines award each site with what they call “page rank”. The point of page rank for search engines is to rank sites according to their likely value to people who are searching. Page rank aims to evaluate sites in terms of what a site offers in content value and relevance to it’s audience.

The number of backlinks is an element in this equation. But: there are backlinks – and there are backlinks.

Backlinks can be high quality or low quality. Backlinks by themselves mean very little to the public.

Simply providing a backlink to another site with little or no other information about it is not likely to be offering much value or benefit to the public.  It just trying to short-circuit the site evaluation and link rating mechanisms of the search engines, whilst offering very little to the audience.

If the backlink is provided as part of accompanying relevant and useful content, then the context of that backlink is going to be much more valuable than that of a backlink which just stands in a long list of other backlinks.

Secondly, a simple backlink is not interesting to your readers. They don’t want to just see a link, they want to know what the site that is being linked to is about.

They will want to know why it might be worth visiting, what it offers, what benefits it brings, how it can help them. Simply linking to the site does not do this.

Readers visit your site because they trust you. Your site has integrity and offers value. Your readers are investing their time in visiting your site. So you should respect their investment in your site. It’s not something you should devalue in your own quick self-interest.

Thirdly, link exchanges can degrade your site.  Linking to other sites just because they backlink to yours is an unstable method upon which to try and build up your site’s reputation and standing on the Web – and with that it’s page rank.

If you don’t seriously evaluate a site and provide relevant content that points to that site when you link to it, if you just link to it because that site links to yours, then you are degrading the value of your own site.

The search engines actually take this into account when they evaluate links. Does a link come with content – relevant content to the link? Or is it just a link standing by itself?

Fourthly, link exchange backlinks clutter up your site. They make it uninteresting and can turn it into a kind of simple Internet version of the phone book – a collection of links which provide little other information to your audience than an address.

Fifthly, link exchanges are so yesteryear. At least 10 yesteryears. They worked back then when they were new, but nowadays, the search engines have become aware of quick and dirty link exchanges. They consider them as belonging to the box of SEO tricks known as “black hat”.

“Black hat” SEO – like black magic, is something people are best advised to steer clear of.  Black hat SEO involves exploiting the search engine algorithms to gain an advantage over other websites that is not based on providing real value to the public.

It’s not ethical.  It doesn’t do your site any good. The search engines are aware of black hat SEO and they continually adjust their ranking algorithms to discount it.

Link farms. Or: Battery Hen Farming for the Internet

Another thing that the search engines already know about from the black magic SEO box of tricks is the so-called link farm.

Like the battery hen farm, link farms are the ultimate degradation. These are websites created solely with the intention of housing large numbers of backlinks back to the sites of their sponsors or creators.

True, link farms usually carry some content so as not to appear too blatent. But the content is almost always of poor quality, scraped or feed-type material or similar channeled from other sites. It’s cheap window-dressing.

Link farms are not built to offer a high-value experience for their human readers. Indeed, they aren’t even primarily aimed at human readers. The primary “readership” they cater for are search engine robots.  It’s writing for robots and it’s just cluttering up the Web with junk.

Don’t get involved with any link farms. As with your breakfast eggs, the genuine free range version always tastes much better than those from the battery farm.

Search engines are continually changing and adjusting their search indexing and site ranking algorithms to discount quick SEO tricks and to provide the best possible value “search experience” for their users. If you try to promote your site through unsound tricks such as link exchanges, then you will not be putting your site on a stable footing for the long term.

Ask the question:

“Who buys from you – human visitors or search engines?”

Your readers should always come first – and the search engines second.

This isn’t just an ethical issue. It’s also sound business sense. Don’t forget it’s always human visitors who buy from you – not search engines.

Always remember this simple question:” Who buys from you?” – and you can’t go wrong.

Good content should always be king. This might sound old school. But sometimes old school is wiser than new school.

Once your site has earned its authority through consistently delivering solid content, it can never be taken away from you. Because your authority is in the content on your site – that you own. No matter what Google or any other search engine may or may not do.

When might link exchanges be justified?

Should you avoid all link exchanges with other sites? Not necessarily. There are some cases in which reciprocal backlinking can be worthwhile.

The key question to always ask is: are you offering real value to your audience through this link exchange?

In cases where the link is provided as a useful address of  a site which is already established and reputable, then it can be useful. Just as in the way that the phone book might be useful (at least before search engines came along) when you need to quickly find out the phone number of a company or organization.

But again, don’t go mad creating lists of backlinks. Your site should consist of high-value content. It should not serve as a phone-book of URL addresses.

If the backlinks on each site are accompanied by relevant quality content then they will also be more likely to be offering real value than a simple link would. In this case the appropriate description would be more “content exchange” than “link exchange”.

In practice though, most site owners who propose a link exchange can’t be bothered to create any high value content to accompany the backlink. They are solely attracted by the prospect of a quick and cheap SEO trick.

My policy is not to get involved in any link exchanges. I’ve probably annoyed some other website owners in following this rule, but my policy is always to put my audience first.

I prefer to keep to solid and sound content creation that adds value to my sites and delivers real value to my readers.

I’d recommend that you do the same.

PS. If you’re looking for a reputable way to build traffic for the long term, take a look at Traffic Grab from world renowned Internet Marketer James Schramko. Click on the ad below for more info.

Image: “Chains” courtesy of John-Morgan

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