After Penguin updated, is reciprocal link exchange bad?

[cunghuong]

Hi all,
You all might have paid attention to Google Penguin update. It made big changes to ranking for many websites.
Regarding SEO work, I am wondering if the reciprocal link exchange is still ok or it it bad in this time?
I can see some of the webmasters are contacting to remove their links on the partners' sites.
What is your opinion?

[Greenbreez]

Ya, it's better to avoid reciprocal linking. If you are doing only reciprocal linking for your website, then it definitely harm your website. Google always likes a mixture of back links.

[PromoDirect]

Reciprocal linking has become a traditional way of link building. It was stopped practicing by many websites long time ago. I am amazed that you are still into reciprocal linking.

[richee]

Reciprocal linking has always good, if you get relevant links

[~kev~]

Reciprocal link exchanges have always been bad, this is nothing new.

Google webmaster guidelines talks about link exchanges,

http://support.google.com/webmasters...n&answer=66356

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.

Only exchange links with good quality sites, and sites that have related content.

Even if you exchange link with a good quality site, how do you know the owner of that site is going to control spam a year from now?

Google uses a 3 link system. If you link to a site, then 2 sites down google finds spam, it can hurt your site.

You can exchange a link with someone, the domain expire and some spammer buy the domain name. Then you are linking to a spam site for months until you realize what is going on.

[mariyajames]

Reciprocal links are actually not a good way to get backlinks because Google always like natural link building like:

Through Forums, Blog commenting, Guest posting, Article syndications in quality sites.

So I think after Penguin updated you should remove your reciprocal backlinks or there are the chances to hit by Google.

[bjohnson]

I always believe that getting reciprocal links is not that good way. I've never tried for that.

[onlineedublog]

Reciprocal linking is fine unless you do it excessively, some people make pages with 100s of links those pages are bad and considered as spam..1

[seoservicesplus]

Yes, That right, Google prevent reciprocal link exchange. It's is traditional way to build link for site but now google strictly banned this way to build link. Thanks

[jeffsmith]

Neither reciprocal was a good practice before the penguin nor it is good after the penguin update.

[tanya.dimple]

Hi Reciprocal links and backlinks both works fine
Reciprocal links help you in two ways:
1. They increase your web site traffic, from people who click on the links.
2. Reciprocal links also play a major role in boosting your rankings in search engines.

[akasheg]

Well if you go by the guidelines its still bad and it always has been. But I still see many sites not penalized even after having a huge directory of links. Don't know about their rankings and all but they still have a decent PR.

So maybe Google is still lacking somewhere in implementing their algorithm. But its still not a good methodology to have link exchanges just because you wan't a link back. Sooner or later Google will perfect their algorithms and you can be penalized then. So avoid it for the long run.

There are a far better ways to build links. Why to get engaged in something that will give you nightmares of getting penalized in the future!

[shakir]

I do not find any difference on reciprocal after Google both updates. And reciprocal from relevant sites always good but the value will be less while compare with on way links...

[Jim Gillum]

And the general consensus is that they are either good or bad......

They work for some but not for others.....
Personally....I will not use them.....)

[tutu]

reciprocal link is always a bad idea. you can get few visitor from these sites. but i don't think that there is any value of those visitors who are coming from the link farm sites. I've achieved good ranking for my several sites without link exchange.
and after penguin updates, just forget the term 'link exchange/reciprocal link' and concentrate on fresh content link. few good links are enough to give you best result.

[mariyajames]

Absolutely, after Penguin update it is better to leave reciprocal link building because it can harm your website.
Instead of doing this we can make our link naturally through guest posting, blog commenting etc. I think it would be beneficial for all of us.

[srishtimehta]

Google neither support non-relevant reciprocal linking, building quality reciprocal link with relevancy is always good effort but not as one way links. After Penguin it becomes too bad to generate non-relevant reciprocal links for your website...

[michaelj72]

if the link exchange is done with a quality site, that has relevant content, it's fine. Cutts himself has said that link exchange is ok as long as it's done 'in moderation'...it's the linking schemes and massive stuff and such that involve large numbers of sites that google doesn't like.

going to a webmaster of a site in your niche who has quality should in general be fine. and think about the user too, would that link be useful for the user of your site or of the other site.
links are the entire basis of the internet and people have become too darn timid about doing any kind of linking out, it's become just absurd. people worry too much about things like this. linking out to other quality sites in your niche helps your rankiings by what I call the grappling effect - and if you can get a link back fine, as long as it's done in moderation as Cutts said it shouldn't present problems.

as someone on another forum posted "The more updates we experience in Google, the less volume of links seems to matter, and the more the "right" links, with a healthy blend of brand, social and author signals seems to take the cake..."
So work on that healthy blend, a few recip links aren't going to hurt

[Manish Pandey]

Link exchanges had always been bad but it used to work in the past, not anymore.

[neo127]

There are many far better ways to get tons of inbound links than why rely on reciprocal or even three way linking. I think that we have to keep finding new methods of getting more quality inbound links.