Link exchange still remains an important tool used by webmasters to improve their ranking with search engines. After years of intense discussions, strict warnings by Google and numerous changes in SE algorithms, thousands of webmasters all over the world still keep to this simple yet effective method to gain inbound links, get a higher PageRank (this is not always workable though for link exchanges in my opinion), and, most importantly, get as many visitors through natural search as possible.
There is a great number of various techniques used to start and maintain a link exchange. Below I summarize the most common methods.
Hardest way
The hardest way is the one where you have no knowledge of web programming languages such as PHP, or CGI, and you want mainly to run your link exchange as pure HTML. In this case, you will have to perform the following tasks:
1. Search for link exchange partners on the Web. This is usually done by googling your keywords or phrases, for example, if your website is about Art, you would search for 'art' or 'artists' in Google or other SE, and see on websites if they have link pages and if they are ready to swap links.
2. Send them an invitation to exchange, something like 'Hi, I found your very interesting website, and I think we could have mutual benefit if we exchange links with my website of similar topic...'. The wording can be different, but the idea is still the same. There are two things which are a MUST in such invitations, the LINK TEXT, and URL of your page. Often people also add a textual description to their link. For example:
LINK TEXT: Paid Articles. Earn for writing.
LINK URL: http://www.how0.com
DESCRIPTION: On this website you can earn from writing reviews, articles and comments.
Sometimes people may add HTML code as well:
<a href='http://www.how0.com/'>Paid Articles. Earn for writing.</a>
- On this website you can earn from writing reviews, articles and comments.
3. Wait for an answer. From my experience, about 70% of such invitations remain unanswered. Even if people have link pages on their website, they may be done with that, because many see a link exchange as a one-time exercise, something like 'do once and forget'. The link pages are there, they have links, all are happy.
4. After receiving an answer, if it is positive, you need to add the partner's details to your link page. Because you don't use any programming methods, you do it just the same way you create your HTML pages, via an HTML editor.
5. Then, when the links are added, the most intriguing part begins: you need to check periodically if your links refer to existing pages, and that your partners still maintain a link to you. This becomes a real headache when you collected a lot of links, say, 100 links. To check if they are valid, you need to click all 100 links manually. Then, you need to open the partners' websites and check that they still keep the link to you.
Usually at some point people who decided to go the hard way would just drop it, and leave their link pages to survive on their own. After a while, they realize that a half or more links are dead, which means they lead to non-existent websites or pages. And your partners, whom you found with so much effort, have already excluded you from their link pages. This may also happen for a reason: for example, Google the Almighty decreased your PageRank, or you are experiencing a temporary or permanent penalty which caused a lower PageRank. In this sad case the partners don't see you as a valuable partner any longer, and delete the link to you. Or, they may be penalized themselves for a too intense link exchange, and after reading some SEO advice, they just crop their link pages randomly.
In the end, such a time-consuming approach will certainly lead you to look for for more viable solutions, such as Automated link exchanges, or specialized web services where you find and communicate with link partners more easily.
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