Value Exchange, the New Link Exchange Approach
March 07, 2005 
Are you struggling to get high value incoming links to your site?
I am.
That is, I only want to exchange links with sites containing value information for my visitors.
But it's a battle. Mainly because I don't give the topic too much of my time. Other issues are more important.
However .......
Things are going to change. Not by me, but by the search engines. Because .....
the search engines are going to weed out reciprocal linking!
So, if you even have the slightest interest in link exchange programs, you definitely should read this newsletter issue before you continue.
Enjoy it!
Case
How to Exchange Valuable Links?
Long time ago I created a link exchange program at my site.
The original purpose was to improve my site popularity by boosting its pagerank. That was a well accepted method those days. I'll show you why it isn't anymore.
I did NOT want to link to just anybody. I have a content driven site and my links should somehow be related to that content and, if possible, should have extra value to my visitors.
So I built a Partner Program using related topics and called it Power Partners.
'Link exchange' and 'links' are bad search engine words. Exchanging links just for the cause to improve website popularity is artificial and if there's anything the search engines don't like it's artificial manipulation of their system. They want .....
valuable content!
As a sidenote, for the same reason I don't use these automated traffic building software programs. I did that once, long time ago, and I must say it really worked.
The software is great, no doubt about that.
But although I carefully re-designed the templates to avoid duplicate pages, the end result was always some sort of copy of a search engine page. And I figured that was NOT what they wanted!
That's why I deleted these pages long time ago. Maybe they've changed a lot these days, I don't know. All I can say is that it was great software, it worked, but the end result wasn't satisfying me (or the search engines).
Anyway, the fact that link exchange or links are bad search engine words already should have got me thinking, but there's a fine line of what a good linking strategy is and what isn't. Over time it lead to a change in my linking priorities:
- provide quality info to my readers; this, by far, is the most important reason to link outside and that's exactly what search engines want you to use links for;
- as a result thereof (maybe) attract traffic from related sites;
- as a (very positive) side effect increase my link popularity at the search engines; this may result in higher rankings for relevant keywords used in the anchor text;
- get spidered and listed at search engines that do not accept website submissions (that's how I got into Yahoo).
I also dare to link to pages with a lower PR than mine, IF they contain valuable information. If that condition is met, they probably will get higher rankings over time. And another advantage is that they are easier to access to exchange links with.
I'm sure I've made a few mistakes here and there. Approved links that I shouldn't have added, so ....
To make it very clear what I expect from my Power Partners, I've listed my conditions on my Power Partner pages .....
But people just don't get it. They request you to link to their sales page, link farm, link directory, affiliate banners page or whatever, They just want to exchange links to .... well just exchange links. Because somebody told them that it would get them higher search engine rankings.
That's not what I wanted at all. But it even gets worse ....
Now the search engines are going to weed out reciprocal linking.
If we look at reason 1 mentioned above, then why should I link to a site that hasn't valuable content for my visitors? And why in the world should anyone link to my site if they can't find great content?
We only do that because of reason 2, 3 and 4. We exchange links, only to have search engines list us higher and we skip reason number 1.
That's exactly why search engines are going to weed such links out. It's just ARTIFICIAL reciprocal linking.
Mind you, search engines do not hold you responsible for who's linking TO you, because you can't influence that.
But they DO hold you responsible to whom you are linking to. So you have to be careful here and certainly watch out for pages with PR 0 (or without any PR at all), because they may have been banned by the SE's. Linking to such pages may get you banned too, although I do not exactly know when or on what criteria.
So, what should you do instead? Here's the answer ....
Instead you should look for Value Exchange (I'll give you a valuable resource in just a moment).
What you want to do is link to related high quality info sites (not directly competing) from within your content rich pages using their keywords in your anchor text.
To me this seems quite easy to do, because at your site you simply can't cover all topics. If you have a page about ebooks, link to a great cover designer. Don't do everything yourself.
As a result of this new search engine approach towards reciprocal linking, I'm taking the other way around. Right now I'm adding content to my Power Partner pages.
That's rather easy, because the topics are related to the content of my site. I only add a few snippets of valuable content there, refer to my webpage where more info can be found and list other resources being ......
my Power Partners!
Another appproach is taken by Allan Gardyne, famous Aussie affiliate expert. In his latest newsletter issue, he writes about how you can exchange a valuable PR5 link with him if you meet his conditions.
Of course Ken Evoy (who else?) is on top of this matter. He just published a new book about how to get links the right way called .... Value Exchange
This is a powerful, important book, because in his SiteBuildIt business, Ken tracks the rankings of thousands and thousands of pages, so he knows exactly what he's doing!
You can download this superb ebook for free. If you signed up for Value Exchange above, you may have seen the download already. If not, here's the link to Value Exchange again. Look in the middle of the page, download it from there.
Oh yeah, and sign up for this service.
Link exchange is going to change. Don't say I didn't warn you.
That's it for today.
Wish you success.
Case Stevens
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