Reciprocal linking occuring naturally is not wrong in any way. But, many that reciprocate take advantage of the fact that a site A will not be penalized for giving out links to another site B. Meanwhile, B has a higher link popularity due to the vote from A. So hey, why not reciprocate and increase the ranks for both sites? Doing so excessively results in both participants having a higher web rank despite not contributing anything to the overall internet community.
Now, Google values reciprocal link less. Specifically, if a site A points to site B that Google considers offensive, site A will be penalized. Therefore, each site now has to be careful on whom it gives its endorsement to.
Do not worry. With reciprocal link on its way out (slowly), we have no choice but to give the best information available to the web community. Here are several ways to increase your site rankings :
1. Create content.
The purpose of search engine is to help people find the information that they need. In the business world, successful companies always give what their customers want. Therefore, create content that your potential customers want and they will be grateful for that.
After the latest google update codenamed Jagger, reciprocal link has less relevancy than ever before. Many have abused this system before and there are even sites that thrived by offering link exchange programs .
2. Give and You Shall Receive.
Give away your content and you shall receive more visitors. This idea is a basic marketing principle. This is like giving away samples of new products at a fair or at an exhibition. Your job is to let people know about your products and/or services. The more people try it out, the higher chance of them becoming your regular customers. It works similar in the search engine world. If you charge exobirant amount of dollars for service that nobody knows, who would come and try out your products?
3. List your website to good web directory .
OK, submitting your sites to good web directories will require your site to be a high PR site or it costs money. Either way, this is not an efficient marketing campaign. Why would you want to link to web directories if you already have a decent PR rank? You will be better off concentrating on your existing visitors rather than acquiring new visitors. Therefore, linking to good web directories are for a new less-visited site. However, good web directories normally do not want to link to small unproven website. Why ? As stated before, if site A links to a bad site B, then A is considered a supporter of B, which means that Google may penalize site A for linking to B.
That leaves us an option to paid web directories. Paid Web Directories generally has a good PR rank. However, to get a number of links from them gets really expensive. If your budget permits, this might be a good idea. However, please remember also that PR rank is not static. When a particular website provides useful information to its visitors, its PR rank will generally increase and vice versa.
4. List your website to general web directory.
Web submission is generally free or require a link back from you. Reciprocal linking is risky therefore it is not advisable if you can still find the free web directory. Please note that these free web directories do not actually want to work for free. They are building hard to provide relevancy to the search engine and increase their link popularity. Therefore, someday, these freebies might become quality web directories.
At that time, they will then charge fee for new site listing. Meanwhile, you are already listed ... for free ! What is your risk? None that I can think of. If a bad site A points to your site, you will not be penalized for it. You cannot control who can or cannot link to your site. There are millions of websites to monitor. Therefore, register your site to the free web directories. Some of them will be mediocre or non existent within a few years. But, some that does succeed will bump your PR ranking up. The best thing of all is you don't spend a dime listing your site with them. At least, not yet.
